


lose me in the sight of you

by sanjoongy, xxmoony



Series: (no such thing as) beautiful goodbyes [3]
Category: ATEEZ (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Ghost Choi San, Grief/Mourning, Kinda Ghost Sex, M/M, Mention Of Homophobia, Mention of Death, Mention of Mental Institutions, Mention of Therapy, Mentions of semi-public sex, Mildly Dubious Consent, Older Choi Yeonjun, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Promiscuity as a Coping Mechanism, Recreational Drug Use, still don't know how to tag, yeonjun is awkward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:02:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24044056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanjoongy/pseuds/sanjoongy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxmoony/pseuds/xxmoony
Summary: the story of delicate petals and strong windsor in which san comes back to help wooyoung move on
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Choi Yeonjun/Jung Wooyoung
Series: (no such thing as) beautiful goodbyes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705789
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	1. part one: traces of losses

**Author's Note:**

> this story takes place after my one shot [watch it all (fall down)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22928650) and in the same universe but if it is read individually you would rarely feel out of place so it's not necessary to check it out but i believe to enhance your reading experience you should
> 
> recommended song would be 5sos - lover of mine, which i kept listening to all throughout this story

Wooyoung unlocked the front door, tossed the excruciating weight of his backpack away, inhaled a deep breath and was halfway through the process of raising his head and simultaneously kicking the door closed when-

“Tough day, huh?”

He got startled so much he jumped.

“Oh my fuck- Stop doing that!” He yelled when his breath returned and looked up at San laying on the sofa face down, with a baseball -a _baseball_??- in his hands that he kept tossing around.

“What?” San let the ball bounce back and fall to the floor, roll towards the middle of the room as Wooyoung tipped his shoes off.

The ball disappeared.

“How many times do I have to tell you? It is not up to me, it’s because of you.” San walked to where Wooyoung stood glaring at him.

“Yeah, a very fucking genius way to remind me the things I constantly try to forget, thank you.” Wooyoung snapped as he walked past San and San followed, like a puppy, footsteps not making a sound.

“Well, that’s not exactly-”

“Yeah, yeah. I know- I swear to god if I hear you explain _the secret of our fucking universe_ one more time, I’ll scream.” Wooyoung pushed past him and got even more annoyed when his hand slid through.

San leaned his head to the side with a small pout that he always naturally had and Wooyoung just fucking _hated_ to see it and all the shit happened just-

“Wow, someone’s cranky today, wanna talk about it?”

Wooyoung rolled his eyes as he threw himself on one of the couches. “Don’t you somehow know about it already?”

“Only if you want me to…”

Wooyoung frowned in an attempt to keep the source of his annoyance as far away as possible in the back of his mind, but the more he tried to hide, the more it fought to the front.

At least as San’s previously pouty but almost sickly pale face changed to a cocky smirk he got that much. The contentment of not having to voice his shame out prevented him from lashing out on San to wipe it away.

“Aww, Wooyoungie… That’s not even that bad- Do you remember the time he dropped you home? When you were so wasted that you almost talked to me right in front of him? I doubt that spilling coffee all over yourself just because he laughed at something you said is nearly bad.” San comfortably widened his smirk and Wooyoung threw him a pillow with all the force his shoulder could support.

San did not duck or even move a finger and the pillow flew right through him.

Wooyoung grimaced. “I still hate that.”

San smiled until his eyes turned into little crescents. “Me too.”

For so long, Wooyoung had been in a bad place.

After _the_ night, that took San from him in the most brutal way, after he saw him on the cold concrete where it slowly changed to red, laying down with limbs bent too odd to be considered humane, eyes closed and perfect skin blemished with scratches of an unknown source, he was never okay.

At first, he tried to hold on. Yeosang helped him pull it together most of the time and talked him into going back to school about two weeks after the funeral that he lost the first half of because he was crying in the car, and lost the second half of because he fainted as soon as he entered the room and caught a glimpse of a picture of San’s smiling face next to fresh flowers.

School was not any better though.

Word got around like a wildfire, every person in the school knew that _the_ Choi San from the art department died in a hit-and-run and the only witness was his boyfriend.

So, they talked.

They talked and talked as Wooyoung was simply walking around the hallways, or eating alone at the cafeteria because he yelled at Yeosang to _fucking stop bothering him for a second_ when he showed up with Seonghwa, or as Wooyoung visited the toilets and when Wooyoung tried to have whatever left of his focus on the lecture.

They kept whispering, not even having the dignity to talk behind his back or keep their voices low enough sometimes, that _maybe it was for the best_ , and _they hurt each other so much_ , _maybe Wooyoung would be okay now at least now that one part of the relationship was gone._

They kept whispering and not giving a shit that Wooyoung had two normally functioning ears and that San fucking _died._

On the other hand, like everything was going great, Jeong Yunho came back from Australia -the morning of the occurings, to be exact-, and Wooyoung was more than thrilled that they did not have any encounters ever since.

But then, of course, like a campus full of people reminding him that yes, San was dead and _he should be_ were not enough for the excruciating pain he was already feeling, the same Jeong Yunho just _had to_ stand right in front of him and yell the words that he had not meant to hear before, but was forced to now.

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Jung Wooyoung,” Yunho yelled and a vein popped on his neck as Hongjoong tried to drag him away to prevent the obvious scene from happening. “I’m the _last_ person you can fool in this world. Did you push him to the road?”

A few drama thirsty heads turned towards them under the tree that he and San first met and even the presence of Yeosang behind him did not help as he felt speechless.

‘’Wh- what?’’

“It’s quite simple, _and_ I know you were fighting when you left the bar, so I’m asking whether you killed my best friend or not.’’ 

Yunho yelled and yelled and all Wooyoung could do was take a step back and look at Hongjoong giving him apologetic looks as he tried to prevent Yunho from unleashing himself at him.

More people started to halt their daily routines to see what the fuss is about. Yeosang took a step forward and shielded Wooyoung from Yunho’s fuming eyes.

Wooyoung was _shaking_.

He heard Yeosang yell “Are you fucking hearing yourself right now?” and “You cannot address him like that, are you even aware of what you are doing to him right now??” and Yunho yell some more but it became more and more distant, like he was watching from between the curious crowd slowly gathering around them, and voices felt like they were right inside his head, like he was underwater and people kept whispering and looking at him like he was the most pathetic thing and the biggest criminal in the world at the same time so-

He screamed.

He screamed, on top of his lungs as he didn’t even realize he crouched down and pressed on his ears so hard it almost drew blood, and screamed until the only thing he could hear was his own heart pumping in his ears and screamed with tears on his face until everyone stopped and looked at him in ultimate shock.

Yeosang later told him he then collapsed, like he ran out of battery and the great freakshow he just put out was the last straw holding him up, and then he hurried him to the hospital to spend the rest of the day there.

After that, Wooyoung _was not_ okay.

A couple of days later he decided to try once more, as Yeosang told him he had to proceed with his life somehow and he almost agreed because he didn’t have anything better to do, all he felt being that disgusting numbness inside his chest did not help.

Nothing helped.

Not the monstrous whispers magnifying with his absence.

Not the heads turning towards him at an inhumane speed with a revolting stare accompanying each and every one of them before they parted their red mouths to spew bullshit into existence.

Wooyoung felt like the moment he stepped foot into the campus, everyone possessed only maliciousness, only unfair judgment as they _whispered and whispered and whispered_ behind him, thinking he wouldn’t hear or maybe not even caring that they were literally saying that he _might_ have pushed his boyfriend towards the road.

Whispered behind him that he might’ve actually killed his boyfriend, and then wept over his body as his soul got further and further away to somewhere he can’t reach with every other second, and then couldn’t even open his eyes properly in the meantime that San suffered even more in vegetative life for other two days.

Just because they argued.

Just because they were arguing when it happened.

Just because the almighty, loved by everyone Jeong Yunho yelled at him in the middle of the campus to confess to the crimes he did not commit.

Wooyoung felt like a piece of shit.

Every time they would open their mouths, he felt like shit because-

Because, after all, what if he did?

Maybe he did push his boyfriend in a fit of rage and then his brain proceeded to immediately forget about it. Because it was already all his fault that anything ever happened and now the only person he felt so belonged to was gone forever, never to be seen with the shittiest parting and he was there to see all of it, but what if-

What if maybe he killed his own boyfriend because he was breaking up with him?

He himself didn’t know as his memory of the night got mushed together in dark greys and blacks and crimson red.

It mushed and mushed and dragged the last bits of his sanity along with it.

Wooyoung took a breath so deep his head spun a little.

He may or may not have been standing outside his and _deceased_ boyfriend’s -not a term Wooyoung loved to use- door for the last twenty minutes as the neighbors walked past him while giving him funny looks and probably wondered where the fuck they had been for the last six months or so. But it wasn’t like they have ever too familiar with them to begin with so they couldn’t actually interrogate.

He just… maybe wasn’t ready yet.

Contrary to what he told Yeosang when he was offered company just in case he felt too bad, that _it was okay_ and _he could at least go and get some stuff that he had been wanting to get from their apartment_.

He and San’s apartment.

Before he died that night.

Wooyoung took another breath and clenched his fist around his spare keys as he squeezed his eyes shut. It had been about a month of staying at Yeosang’s apartment since he got discharged from the mental hospital he had to stay at for about five months when things got a bit out of hand since basically _everything._

When _nothing was okay anymore_ and _the patient Jung Wooyoung is found to be not fit to care for his basic needs due to severe mental health conditions_ was what his psychiatrist wrote on a piece of high-end paper, under a statement saying Jung Wooyoung (21) was found in the bathtub of his friend’s apartment three days ago.

He gulped and tried to ease the lump seconds away from blocking his throat with angry tears, opened his eyes in a rush of determination.

He could do it, of course. He was okay now, he even made everyone back at the hospital _believe_ there was nothing wrong with him, even though weekly doctor’s visits were a strict necessity and if he missed even one of them Yeosang would start digging his grave right then and there, and he was totally capable of doing anything without breaking into tears or feeling like his lungs were in the brink of catching fire. So of course, he was absolutely going to unlock the door and face all the memories raining upon him.

Someone strolled down the stairs giving him the _stinky eye_ and his shoulders deflated immediately.

It has been twenty five minutes when Wooyoung finally felt like he will not break into tears with the tiniest sight of the couch San and he spent most of their time lazing around on, or all of San’s belongings on his desk that he begged San’s parents not to touch or move or throw away and they agreed to keep the whole apartment because, well, they were rich and their only son had died and the only thing that bounded them to him was his ex-boyfriend.

Wooyoung raised his hand holding the keys, as robotically as possible, put them in the keyhole and twisted. The door slightly opened with a squeal that was not present before and left him feeling goosebumps all over his skin. His hands were trembling when he tried to retrieve the keys but decided against it when they resisted from where they were stuck in the keyhole. With the insecure feeling of not having the keys he left the door ajar as he took hesitant footsteps towards the entrée, just for the sake of not feeling cornered.

The house was silent, contrary to how it was when everything was still okay and Wooyoung couldn’t help but feel like it had long died along with its owner. He felt his eyes well up. He wasn’t even properly inside the house yet.

He couldn’t help but shiver when he passed by the empty kitchen and caught a glimpse of the shadows beneath undrawn curtains move slightly. He looked up to check if the window was open to see that it is not as the unshed tears blurred his vision mercilessly. He clutched the strap of his backpack between his hands as tight as he could and _breathed_.

He could do it. He only came to take some things he did not have a chance to get when things went havoc and _it was going to be okay_.

With a sigh trying its best to calm his lungs burning on the brink of an anxiety attack, Wooyoung looked around for the shelves and San’s and his own faces smiled at him from their respective frames that they went shopping for and almost toppled over the whole hardware section because they were giggling so much.

He felt his eyes burn as tears finally streamed down his face silently with just a sight of his face on a photo that he did not have a chance to see as much as to his liking when he had been in the hospital, or Yeosang’s care.

He found it almost a bit odd, though, that the frame did not collect any dust over the last six months that supposedly no one should have been present in the house. Maybe San’s parents hired some service while he wasn’t even here. Maybe they rented the place even though they promised him they wouldn’t. But would the key he had unlock the front door that is not supposed to be his -or his boyfriend’s- apartment’s anymore?

Wooyoung sighed once more as he sniffed. San’s face kept smiling at him with the stupid white streak of hair over it.

Every wall and every scratch on the floor showered him with memories and by the time he actually managed to set foot in the biggest part of the house, he didn’t even realize he had his whole face wet with silent tears streaming down his sunken cheeks.

The place they spent all of their time together, where they fought, where they made love and fought again just to cuddle ten minutes later because that was how things were.

That was how things were and he loved every bit of it.

He wiped his face on his jacket sleeve when violent tears blurred his vision enough to get annoying and dropped his backpack beside his feet when he realized a shadow, a silhouette near where the floor lamp stood in the corner of the room.

First, he thought it was just light reflecting from the lamp itself, but then realized, no, the lamp was turned off and he just arrived.

He took a step back in fear at the thought of someone breaking in, his heart beating, but it almost entirely stopped when his eyes could finally focus on what- _who_ it is.

“Oh, finally. I’ve been waiting for so long. I thought you forgot the address or something.”

Choi San, _the_ Choi San, his boyfriend, who was supposed to be dead for more than eight months, stood right in front of him, with a white gown that looked weirdly airy and a face pale like he can see the vibrant colors of the curtain behind him if he looked hard enough.

Wooyoung blinked, tears gently streamed down his paling cheeks and the next thing he saw was darkness.


	2. part one: stuck in a loop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has a scene with a mild panic attack so be mindful of that <3  
> also please make note of the new tags before reading  
> recommended song is dean - howlin' 404

Wooyoung opened his eyes expecting to see literally nothing, maybe a little bit more of darkness or that the smell of hospital disinfectant would attack his nose, but he was laying on the floor, with a weirdly placed cloth under his head and the same white gowned figure, _fucking Choi San_ , looming over him.

He crawled back, five feet apart from him as San’s weirdly lifeless eyes lit up with a sheen.

“Young-ah, you’re finally awake.” San stood up from where he was previously crouched down and walked towards Wooyoung as he cowered under the desk. His footsteps felt like they had no contact with the laminate flooring.

“Wha- what the hell?” Wooyoung stuttered and San smiled, a smile heavenly and nowhere near how it used to be. “Is th- this some- some twisted dream?..”

San giggled, a pure sounding giggle and it _did not_ feel like Choi San at all. “I bet you’d want to wake up and live with that short disappointment rather than this being real, huh?”

Wooyoung gulped and felt an odd sense of cold wash over him as the almost translucent figure of his dead boyfriend, _oh god_ , loomed over him once more. “Young-ah?”

“This- this is not real, I know it- it can’t be-” Wooyoung laughed, incredulous and San -or San’s ghost, to put it better- cocked his head to the side slightly.

“Why?”

He looked beautiful, Wooyoung thought, amidst his fear, he looked heavenly, like nothing ever happened. Like he didn’t see him dying on the asphalt just months ago.

“Because- How it can be real? You’re dead, you’re- you’re not supposed to be here, I’m not supposed to see you- unless I-” He stopped, blinked as his heart tried to escape his chest vigorously. “I relapsed, right? I had some seizure and I’m in the hospital and I will wake up in a second.”

“No- no, you are not asleep. But you are very right, I’m not supposed to be here.” San curled his lips a bit more into his endearing smile and Wooyoung eagerly waited for him to say that yes, he wasn’t supposed to see him either, but San only kept his smile on his stupid attractive face and it was too much. It was just too much and too real and Wooyoung felt like screaming because he thought he missed San, but he missed San _so fucking much_ and he was this close to just-

“The thing is Wooyoungie, I have been waiting for you…” San said and stood up, elegantly as his gown floated in the air at places, and took a step opposite where Wooyoung still cowered on the floor, with his hands bound together on his back.

“For- for me?” Wooyoung stuttered.

“Yeah, because-” San stopped, looked around the familiar walls of the apartment for a second. “There’s a reason why I’m still here.”

Wooyoung wanted to vomit.

“I can’t leave and it’s because you won’t let me go.” San said as he turned around to let his stupid white gown float even more in the air. “Isn’t my gown pretty? I wanted to show you.”

 _Oh my fuck,_ Wooyoung thought, _I finally lost it, to the extent I see my dead boyfriend._

San, or his ghost, erased his cute smile and replaced it with a slightly irritated one as he stopped spinning around. “Ah, cute, Wooyoungie, but it’s _ex-_ boyfriend to you.”

Wooyoung almost screamed because he did not even open his tightly shut mouth.

San’s smile returned to its cute state. “Anyways, you’re seeing me because I’m here, not because you lost it. And we need each other so I can move on. Purgatory is quite boring, I’m afraid.”

“P-purgatory?” Wooyoung tried to stop the slight tremor of his hands by hiding them behind his back. “You- you’re dead. How is this even-”

“I am, indeed. For quite a while. How long has it been?.. I’m so late, I should leave soon…”

Wooyoung tried to gulp the bump closing his throat at the sight of San’s genuinely confused face right in front of him and felt something just _snap_ inside.

“You know what? This is fucking bullshit. My brain is playing tricks on me.” He scurried up to gather his backpack from where he dropped it and started walking towards the front gate that somehow magically closed on its own right in front of his eyes. He kept walking. He heard San’s oh so familiar voice echo through the walls saying his name. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second.

“I will not relapse when I’ve been out for only one and a half month, this is stupid.” He murmured to himself as he placed his hand on the doorknob and stopped when he felt a tremor up his spine at the cold air licking his nape.

“I’m here because you want me to be, Wooyoung.” San’s voice whispered over his ear, the air behind him getting colder and colder. He tried to turn the knob and it did not budge. “But I can’t stop you if you want to leave now.”

Wooyoung closed his eyes as hard as he could and the cold air surrounding his back subsided to a normal room temperature as the door in front of him clicked open.

He opened his eyes, saw nothing, felt nothing but still did not dare turn back as he left the apartment as soon as he gathered the keys and snapped the door closed with shaking hands and a galloping heart.

The next time he came back, the next time being because it wasn’t like what he witnessed was actually the reality but he just-

He just had to check. And still needed to get his things. Yes. It wasn’t like San’s ghost was actually in the house, waiting for him, it was just the dozens of pills messing with his still mourning brain.

He was though.

When he unlocked the door that he very vividly remembered not being able to lock before he scurried away and stepped inside, his legs still having the slight tremor he couldn’t get rid of, San’s all too familiar figure popped in front of him as soon as he stepped foot inside the living room.

“Young-ah! Where were you? I’ve been waiting!” He giggled all too excitedly and Wooyoung almost blacked out once again.

When Wooyoung could breathe regular enough to sit down, forcing his brain and heart to stay calm and take in the situation for a bit, the situation that his dead boyfriend’s ghost was literally enlivened, swaying right and left a few feet away from where he was sitting on the couch.

“What are you so excited about?” Wooyoung reprimanded, absolutely fed up with anything happening at that moment and San only giggled as he hopped.

“I’m happy you came back. Soobin insisted you wouldn’t because I scared you last time.”

Wooyoung frowned as much as he could in confusion. “Who the f-” He took a deep breath and shut his eyes closed, tried so hard not to snap and opened them as he raised his hand in the air. “Why- why is this happening right now?”

San ceased his hopping and smiled until his dimples deepened and eyes disappeared. “I told you, Young-ah, you need my presence so bad that I can’t move on, so I’m here.”

“Can you cut this bullshit, please?!” Wooyoung yelled, frustrated as much as he could be, realized he was probably yelling at the empty air, got even more frustrated since there was no fucking way San’s fucking _ghost_ actually stood -floated? He didn’t even know- right in front of him.

He ran his hand over his face until his skin turned red.

“I couldn’t believe it either.” San’s sweet voice spoke over his confusion and panicked train of thought and he raised his head to look at him play with the hem of his black shirt, soft. He wasn’t wearing The Gown anymore, just a plain black shirt and a pair of jeans that he looked nothing like himself in.

“When I first- I’m not sure how to describe it but, when I first realized that I’m still here it felt like- like getting hit by a car-”

Wooyoung watched his obvious confusion over his wording of choice and almost got horrified at his efforts on trying to remember because- “That’s how you died…”

San’s face illuminated by something he could not exactly describe as joy, but maybe relief. “Oh, that should be why. I don’t remember… how…” He trailed off into a confused frown disrupting his heavenly features and Wooyoung frowned even more like it’s a competition.

“You don’t remember how you died?”

San raised his head with his bright smile back to lift his cheeks. “I don’t remember lots of things. I remember or know you-” He stopped to put his hand on probably non-beating heart. “-here, probably. And I know that you miss me and need me and-” He stopped once more to tilt his to the side like a cute puppy as he lowered his hand on his chest. “-love me?.. And that you need to let me go so I can leave for good.”

He smiled even brighter, like it was possible, and Wooyoung was even more confused, like it was possible.

He combed his hands through his black hair and tugged at the ends with exasperation. “So, you’re telling me that you don’t remember? Us? Dating? How we spent every fucking second together?”

“I have a vague idea.” San murmured, his demeanor shy, very unlike himself. “Now that you think about it so much.”

Wooyoung, once again, pushed the heels of his palms over his eyes in hopes of opening them and seeing nothing but the swaying of the curtains over opened windows, but what he saw when he removed them was San’s swaying figure itself. He felt his eyes well up, for the nth time this past week ever since he made the mistake of stepping foot in this house and starting to see these stupid visions. He had to _fix_ himself before his next session otherwise he would have to make everyone believe again, which he absolutely _did not_ wish to go through a second time.

“Oh, baby, I didn’t mean to upset you.” San cooed, sounding obviously worried and _all of a sudden too much like himself_ , that Wooyoung startled.

“D- don’t- Don’t call me that.” He scoffed despite the tears staining his cheeks and San’s chuckle almost reverberated through the walls.

“But you don’t mean that-”

“Will you fucking stop?!” Wooyoung retorted, now obviously yelling at the ghost of his boyfriend that most likely did not exist anyways. “You broke up with me! I watched you die on the asphalt like a fucking puppet drowning in its own blood, oh my god!”

San blinked, tilted his head to the side once more in slight confusion. “I think you should call-” He stopped to think for a second, ignoring the steam coming off of Wooyoung at the moment. “Your friend? The one hated my guts?”

“Yeosang?” Wooyoung frowned when he realized San tried really hard to remember and _how could he even forget Yeosang when_ -

“Oh, yeah, right. Yeosang.” San nodded his head in confirmation and before Wooyoung could ask the reason, he sat down over the coffee table right behind him. “Are you still friends? Has it been too long?”

“You don’t remember?” Wooyoung blinked away the tears blurring his vision and sniffed. “It’s been 8 months.”

San smiled and his dimples told Wooyoung to keep crying because how could he be so good looking when he was _dead_. “I told you. I don’t remember lots of things.”

He was sitting right there, acting like him getting hit by a car caused him only to have some type of amnesia and Wooyoung just couldn’t stand it. He jumped up, gathered his backpack that he brought in hopes of at least this time gathering what he wanted to get, walked straight towards the front door. “I can’t do this, no. This is not real.”

This time he heard footsteps, but he could not decide if they came from outside or from right behind him as he did not stop even when San’s sweet voice followed him through the corridor to the front door. “Wooyoung-ah, wait-”

He slammed the door shut and kept walking.

“An iced americano and a vanilla latte here!” Wooyoung shouted over the white noise of the café and smiled when a girl with long black hair came to pick up her order. He wiped the excess coffee on his hands on his apron and returned to the counter to take his next order.

He has been working at this coffee shop that was pretty close to where Yeosang’s house was, for about a month now. Since he concluded in his head that he did not want to pursue his academic career back on the campus where everyone literally _made him go crazy_ , he deregistered altogether to find a job. It wasn’t like Yeosang cared that he was practically nursing Wooyoung for more than half a year instead of his shitty homophobic parents, but he was feeding off of his back for months now. Yeosang could support him only for so long and he couldn’t ask for more after all the things he did for him.

So, when applied for the job and got accepted a couple of days later, he cried.

“It will be 4500 won, card or cash?” Wooyoung smiled his best customer smile at the guy handing him a credit card and returned it along with his receipt. It was nice, actually, paid well, the manager was a decent person and had lots of customers with a comfortable atmosphere all around.

The guy took his card and receipt and left to get his coffee from the counter. The line moved to reveal a smiling face that was all too familiar.

And then there was him.

“Hi! You’re here again.” The guy with the black hair parted from the side; pouty and, if Wooyoung had to admit, adorable lips curved into a big smile stood right in front of the cashier’s desk, like he did every fucking day, and chirped excitedly like he didn’t see Wooyoung right when he walked inside.

“Hi.” Wooyoung smiled, tried to conceal his annoyance with his perfected customer smile but it failed as he gathered a medium-sized cup and a pen to write _Yeonjun_ with. “The regular?”

Yeonjun, as he put his wallet on the counter to take a good look at the table above Wooyoung’s head, frowned like he’s in deep confusion. “I was thinking I wanted something bitter today.” He put his elbows over the counter to get a better look and Wooyoung had to momentarily decide if he wanted to smack his face to make him go away or bop his nose because it was cute as heck while his heart started racing.

It wasn’t like, _oh my god take me out on dates and kiss me under the moonlight_ kind of racing but more like, _why is this stranger that comes to the same coffee shop every fucking day and will probably die of caffeine poisoning so hot for no reason_ kind of racing.

Wooyoung wanted to slap his face anyways as he cleared his throat. “Would you like an americano then? Maybe double shot?”

Yeonjun smiled, looked at Wooyoung frown-smiling at him like he wanted to be anywhere but there, and nodded his head from side to side. “Oh, no. I will take a latte with three pumps of vanilla, please.”

Wooyoung bit the inside of his lip to resist rolling his eyes. He definitely wanted to smack his face.

When Yeonjun finally gave up on trying to lay down over the counter and collected his wallet to get his debit card that Wooyoung probably could online shop on his own from how many times he had a chance to look at the card number, Wooyoung attempted once more to just _smile._ “Medium, right?”

Yeonjun nodded, almost too enthusiastic as he handed his card out for Wooyoung to hold as he wrote his name on the cup he has been holding perfectly still in the air all throughout their interaction.

“You know I can’t drink any other size, Wooyoung-ssi.” He said playfully, puckering his lips slightly and Wooyoung smiled at him once more, turned around to reach far enough so the other barista could take it. “Yes. Of course. Small is too small and if you buy a large one you can’t eat your muffin.” He repeated what he has been told at least over five times now and tried to keep his eye roll internal enough.

Yeonjun smiled so big, that they probably would not have needed light bulbs inside the shop. “Yes! I will get a muffin too. Chocolate.”

“Right away.” Wooyoung said before he yelled to the back that there is a muffin order and proceeded with the payment without even feeling the need to tell Yeonjun how much it was. He had probably memorized the whole menu by now.

“Thank you, Wooyoung-ssi.” Yeonjun beamed when Wooyoung gave his card back, walked away to collect his order and Wooyoung felt like he could finally breathe.

It wasn’t that Wooyoung liked the guy or anything. He was just very annoying with his all-too-friendly attitude and Wooyoung used up all his energy for basic human interaction long ago. And the guy, Yeonjun, was maybe being a bit too friendly that he sometimes considered the possibility of any interest involvement. Was he even interested in men though? When all Wooyoung knew was his first name and his credit card number.

Wooyoung sighed as his eyes subtly followed Yeonjun thanking the other barista for his order, taking the seat he reserved for himself by putting his laptop on the table and blazer jacket on the chair and starting to work on his laptop while he took occasional sips from his stupidly sweet drink for the rest of the day.

Yeosang lived in an apartment only two blocks down where the coffee shop was and Wooyoung was indefinitely grateful for it because streets were most of the time very deserted when he clocked off, to the point there wasn’t a soul under the orange street lights other than one or two stray cats.

He didn’t mind it much though, as soon as he plugged in his earphones it gave him enough isolation from the bad in the world that the only thing he craved would be just threading the rest of the road and arriving home as soon as possible.

It wasn’t one of those days.

His phone had died a couple of hours ago during his shift and it was the only day he did not bring his charger with him because he had to leave in a hurry that morning.

It wasn’t that he was scared of the streets being ridden of anyone or that someone could have stood right in front of him with a knife, the pointy end towards him.

It was the sounds.

The distant sounds of the engines whirring on the main road just down the street. The honking, the tires screeching, the exhaust pipes growling, everything.

He hated all of it.

 _That’s how he died_ , the world yelled at him. _Would you like a strong evocation of how he laid there, lifeless, his bones broken and sticking out in places and his blood painting the asphalt elegantly and messily at the same time, how you couldn’t even say goodbye to him, how he looked at you right before he closed his eyes forever and you couldn’t do anything and how-_

It had been a little over two weeks since he went back to the apartment to check what he saw was true.

He took a shaky breath and closed his eyes for only a second. It wasn’t. Of course, it wasn’t. He was okay. He was taking his pills. He didn’t miss his appointments even once.

His in-ears did not block the noise enough to give him comfort while he walked the last couple minutes remaining until he went to Yeosang, cuddled him until he could forget or maybe forced down some sleeping pills because it was 3 a.m. and he still had his arms and legs wrapped around him. With a fond smile though. Always with a fond smile.

He sighed, annoyed at a car driving particularly close and bit the inside of his cheek until he caught the familiar glimpse of Yeosang’s apartment building.

It was okay.

Another car drove right past him as he was about to go inside the building, and he cussed. It was okay. Yeosang was right behind the door to his apartment. It was okay.

“Yeosang-ie~!” He whined when he finally stepped inside and walked towards Yeosang to koala hug him when Yeosang peeked from where he was sitting at the sofa. “My phone died!”

Yeosang giggled as he gave him all the cuddles. “You couldn’t listen to music?”

“I couldn’t…” Wooyoung pouted, hid his face in Yeosang’s baggy grey hoodie, sighed as Yeosang started patting his disheveled hair. The television kept humming in the back comfortingly. “It was like every car in the world was passing by…”

Yeosang stopped to draw in an unsure breath. “Did you tell them about this, Wooyoung-ah? Isn’t it getting worse?”

Wooyoung felt himself stiffen for a second. Yeosang put a gentle kiss on top of his head to ease him once more. “I’m sure your doctor can tell you what to do to prevent it.”

“I-” Wooyoung choked up, gulped it down as he held Yeosang’s hoodie in his palm even tighter. “I did.” He lied, so easily. “It just didn’t go away. I know it will.”

“It’s okay.” Yeosang murmured into his hair as he hugged him a bit tighter. “You’re home now, Wooyoung-ah.”

Wooyoung hummed, breathed in and out in the rhythm of Yeosang’s fingers in his hair. “Thank you.” He whispered when he didn’t feel like throwing up anymore.

Yeosang smiled, fondly like he always did, and murmured into Wooyoung’s ear. “Are you hungry? Or do you want some hot chocolate?"

“I’m kinda hungry…” Wooyoung pouted and Yeosang laughed while pinching his cheek when Wooyoung stopped hiding in his sweater. “Then get up. I left you some of dinner.”

Wooyoung’s whole face lit up as he watched Yeosang get up to heat up whatever was left. “Yeosang is the best!!”

“Don’t yell. The neighbors are gonna complain to the landlord again.”

“Okay~!” Wooyoung yelled, giggling and Yeosang laughed silently. Wooyoung laid face down on the sofa, closed his eyes and listened to the actors play out a most likely too dramatic scene with the volume as low as possible, listened to Yeosang hum a song released only a week ago that probably played a lot in the radios and thought about how the world was such a cruel place when it wanted to because he didn’t hear any of the cars or their engines. Only safety. Only home.

“Where is Seonghwa? Did you guys break up already?” He yelled once again, not paying much mind to Yeosang’s warning before and heard Yeosang sigh deeply all throughout the hallway.

“No, Wooyoung. He doesn’t live here, remember?”

“So, he won’t come today?” _YES,_ he whispered as he made his hands into cute little fists in triumph.

“He should be here in a minute actually.” Yeosang’s baritone laugh echoed from the kitchen along with some metal cluttering against each other and Wooyoung rolled his eyes into a pout. He didn’t like the guy. For obvious reasons.

He was drowsing into a nap when he heard something vibrate under him and jumped up wide-eyed. He still did not plug his charger in, so it could not be his, he thought with sleep still lingering over his brain and looked around to find Yeosang’s phone screen light up with some unknown number flashing.

He blinked, gulped slowly and got up to head towards the kitchen. “Yeosang-ah?..” He murmured, tired to no end after his whole day shift and Yeosang yelled back. “Still in kitchen!”

“Your phone.” Wooyoung said when he saw Yeosang setting up a whole table just for him, felt like puking hearts and rainbows for him if they weren’t drowned out by exhaustion. Yeosang put the last tableware down and smiled when he looked at him.

“Did you fall asleep? It was suspicious how you were so quiet.”

Wooyoung laughed while mock pushing him on the shoulder and handed him the still vibrating phone, the other hand rubbing one of his sleepy eyes. “It’s unknown. It’s gonna go off if you don’t pick it up already.”

Yeosang blinked, dried his hands on his clothes and took the phone to lean it against his ear. “Unknown? At this hour?”

Wooyoung shrugged, still rubbing his eye until it got red, and watched Yeosang answer the call with a simple _yes_ , and then waited a bit more until he frowned as he listened to the tinny voice coming from the other side of the connection. He mouthed _what is it_ and Yeosang held his finger up to signal him to stop for a second.

“Yes, Wooyoung is here right now. I’ll pass the phone to him.” He covered the receiver with his hand like it will make any difference and whispered with his forehead creased with how much he was frowning. “They’re saying it is Mrs. Choi’s secretary and it has to do with something about the apartment. Is it _that_ apartment, Wooyoung?”

Wooyoung mirrored Yeosang expression with even more confusion etched into it and took the phone hesitantly.

“What do you mean the _apartment_?..” He whispered, too sleepy to comprehend as fast, before he put the phone over his ear when Yeosang kept frowning dubiously. “Hello? This is Wooyoung.”

“Good evening, Jung Wooyoung-ssi. Sorry to interrupt your private time, I am Mrs. Choi’s secretary.” The woman’s tinny voice said over the line and Wooyoung felt his heart stop beating right then and there. It was San’s mother’s secretary. It was _San’s mother’s secretary._

“Uh, ye-yes. It’s completely okay. You were talking about the apartment?..” He trailed off; his heart kept punching his ribcage vigorously.

It couldn’t be about-

“Um, yes. I am very sorry to be warning you, Jung Wooyoung-ssi, but Mrs. Choi wanted me to tell you that the neighbors are complaining about the noise coming from the house during night and day, continuously. I’m assuming you moved back in, but you should be a bit more considerate regarding your activities. Thank you for your time.”

The line went flat before Wooyoung could say anything back, so he stood there, completely baffled and with a face as pale as milk.

He hadn’t been in the apartment for the last two weeks or more. Not even once.

It couldn’t be, right?

“Wooyoung, what is it?” Yeosang asked with a voice etched in so much worry but Wooyoung only blinked at him as his hand holding the phone dropped down in shock.

“Yeosang, I-” He started but he didn’t know. He didn’t even know what that was about but he-

He had to check. He had to go and check _right now_.

“Wooyoung, it was San’s mom’s secretary, right? What was it about-” Yeosang started but Wooyoung did not listen to even a word as he clutched the phone between his fingers and looked at Yeosang in the eye, gave his shoulder a firm squeeze and ran towards the front door.

“I need to go, don’t wait for me if I’m late!” He said, already panting while wearing his shoes in a hurry and Yeosang ran after him. “Wooyoung, stop, where are you-”

“I’m taking your phone, mine’s dead.” He said as he opened the front door, gathered his jacket, bag and keys and almost bumped into Seonghwa as he stood there, ready to ring the bell, now standing as baffled as Yeosang was.

“Hi, what-” Seonghwa frowned as he looked between Wooyoung trying not to trip over his half-worn shoes and Yeosang watching him very concerned.

“Wooyoung-ah, wait, I’ll come with you!” Yeosang yelled but Wooyoung had already jumped down the first five steps of the stairs, yelling back “It’s fine, don’t wait up for me!”

He hasn’t been in there for two weeks. He didn’t even think about laying a foot there ever since he “saw things”, but what did it mean that-

 _Continuous noise_ , she said, right? If some homeless guy didn’t break in and start living and partying there like there is no tomorrow for the last two weeks, could it be what he saw?

 _Who_ he saw?

He stopped a cab, gradually started trembling more and more the closer the vehicle got to the house and when he was standing in front of the building, he wanted to yell at himself for not getting the evening dose of his pills before trying to confirm if his ghost _ex_ -boyfriend was in their previously shared house.

He bit the inside of his cheek until it drew blood and when he tasted the metallic on his tongue, he walked inside. The black sky of the night was not making anything better either.

The phone still tightly clutched in his hand as an anchor of safety from what probably waited -or did not and he was actually relapsing- behind the closed door of _the_ apartment, he closed his eyes and breathed, as shaky as it was. Maybe it was nothing, maybe they just mistook someone else’s noise as his and he was about to make the biggest fool out of himself; but something, _something_ made him feel like there was something wrong. _Very_ wrong.

He searched for the key in his bag with shaky hands and almost dropped it on the floor at 11 pm on a weekday. He put the keys in the keyhole but did not turn it as he forced a bit more air into his lungs that already started to burn like there was a fire going on inside his chest.

It was okay. It wasn’t like the house was actually haunted or something. _What is this,_ Wooyoung thought, _some cheesy horror/comedy movie?_

He had to wait until he could go through the front door for about another fifteen minutes though.

“San?..” He said, his voice an unsure whisper as he kicked off the front door he just unlocked and remembered very vividly that _he did not lock_ when he left two weeks ago.

The house responded with absolute silence and darkness, so he lit a lamp to suppress the urge to scream any second as he proceeded deeper into the hallway.

“San?” He called out once more. “Are you here?” He only wished the neighbors did not hear him calling out for his dead boyfriend at some random night, not even Halloween or something. _Ah, how fucking stupid,_ he thought, as he entered the living room after checking every part of the house for an intruder, without even giving two shits about being extremely vulnerable if there was actually someone in the house, and flicked the lights on without waiting a second this time.

“San, if you’re here, this is your last chance to show up.” He murmured, feeling slight tremors up his spine now that he was in the living room, where he previously had the vision in question.

It wasn’t like San, or his ghost, was actually there or anything, right?

He waited, so silent that he could hear the television humming upstairs and a married couple quarreling about the man cutting his son’s hair a bit too uneven while the son started crying about looking too ugly, and sighed. It was stupid. They probably mistook someone else’s racket as his and assumed just because he was 21. There was no way _that_ was actually real, anyways.

“Fuck, what am I even doing?..” He murmured as he squeezed his eyes shut for a second and turned around to leave, a weird sense of disappointment lingering in his chest, but-

“Why are you calling for me, I was winning!” A voice interrupted the angry married woman’s yelling and the familiarity of it made his legs give out immediately.

He _had_ to be imagining, he _had_ to be dreaming, there was _no way_ but it was the third time and how the fuck was Choi San actually now crouching down in front of him with the most worried look on his face-

He heard him yell out something in the context of breathing and did not realize he just _was not_ until San tried to help him breathe by emphasizing his own chest movements, just like he did _before_ and _Wooyoung wanted to fucking scream because San was actually in front of him and_ -

“Baby, breathe, it’s okay, it’s okay,” San murmured when the worst of Wooyoung’s drowning of his ears went away and Wooyoung drew shaky breaths in as he uncovered his ears that he did not even remember covering, put his hands still shaking with tremors down on the floor just to feel some sense of reality and looked at San’s face searching every bit of his own as worry clung onto his features.

“Can you breathe now? Can you hear?”

Wooyoung just looked at him and thought, oh my god, he missed him so fucking much.

“Don’t call me baby…” He wheezed and San finally smiled as he sat down on the floor with no thud.

“Ah, I thought you were going to pass out and I will have to wait for you to wake up for another day.” He said. His voice exchanged his worry with relief in seconds and Wooyoung almost smacked him.

“Maybe if you did not scare the shit out of me, I wouldn’t have a panic attack!” Wooyoung scolded and threw his backpack still clinging onto his shoulder towards San, watched it go right through him with wide, watery eyes.

San smiled softly until his eyes formed cute crescents. “Sit on the sofa first. The floor should be cold.”

Wooyoung blinked and blinked at him until San got up, tilted his head to the side. “Are you not feeling well enough? Why didn’t you take your pills?”

Wooyoung’s eyes widened even more. “How do you know that?” He murmured as he searched his already blurring memory to remember if he mentioned not taking his pills. He did not.

San smiled once again. This time he was wearing black jeans and some cotton candy pink, fluffy sweater which he still did not look anything like himself in.

“You thought about it. That’s how I know.” San said softly and walked towards the sofa before gesturing Wooyoung to sit on it.

“How is this actually happening right now?..” Wooyoung murmured, more to himself than anyone else when he dropped his body onto the sofa once he actually could feel his legs enough to walk a few feet worth of distance.

“I told you, I cannot move on because you are not letting me go.” San let another smile ease his sharp features and Wooyoung stared at the patterns of the curtains that were visible through the perfectly pale skin of San’s cheeks.

“Stop saying that, I don’t care if you’re here or not!” Wooyoung yelled, his frustration building up enough that he couldn’t contain it anymore. “I was finally healing, I even got out of the institution all fine, why do you have to come and ruin it, oh my god!”

“I am here because you need my presence so much,” San said softly like he almost whispered as he plopped down on the coffee table and Wooyoung frowned while drawing a cold breath into his still burning lungs.

“Stop spouting bullshit, I didn’t even think about you in so long.” Wooyoung spat back. San looked like a soft, airy-fairy as he played with his fingers on his lap with the softest smile on his face.

“You were thinking about me so much that I’m stuck in purgatory, Young-ah.”

“No, you’re not. It’s my brain playing games on me, okay? You’re not real.” Wooyoung said, frowning at San flipping a card on the table slowly. Ace of hearts.

“Why did you come to check on me, then?” He flipped another card. Ace of diamonds.

“Because…” Wooyoung trailed off. He came because he had to check if the sounds were actually coming from this house. He came to check if San was actually here.

San smiled, almost sly as he flipped another card on the coffee table’s surface. Ace of spades. “You were not coming so I had to make some noise. I’m sorry.”

Wooyoung blinked as he felt his heart drop to his stomach and start beating like crazy down there. It was him. It was actually him.

“You made… noise?..”

San shook his head yes as enthusiastically as he could and dropped some of the cards on the floor. “Yes! Me and my friends.”

“Your- Your friends?” Wooyoung asked shakily and San shook his head yes once more, still as enthusiastic. “Yes! Soobin is here right now. I was told you can’t really see anyone but me, but you can feel him!”

Wooyoung looked at him wide-eyed because one dead person in a room was more than enough already, but then he felt the air to his left get colder and colder and jumped towards the other side, heart almost jumping out of his mouth _because what the fuck_ -

“Why is it getting colder, what is it?” He said as fast as he could, and San giggled while flipping the last card remaining on the table. Ace of clubs. “Soobin, see? I told you I was winning…” He pouted, bloating his cheeks out simultaneously. Wooyoung’s eyes got even wider like there was any possibility.

“Is- Is your f-friend here?..” He stuttered and San raised his head to give him the widest eye smile.

“Yes! He’s sitting right beside you. Soobin say hi.” He looked towards Wooyoung’s left that even as he tried to be as far away as possible, kept getting colder. Wooyoung gulped with a face still almost as pale as San’s and San turned to smile at him once more. “He’s saying hi.”

Wooyoung felt like he could pass out at any given second.

He moved a few inches more to his right, cleared his throat with a brain making him feel like he was straight up _high_. “Wha- What is up with the cards?” He asked but his voice came out like a child that just got scolded by his mother.

“I was winning but you called me and now it’s wasted,” San said, still pouting cutely and Wooyoung for a second, only for a second thought that he would pinch his cheeks if they weren’t in such a shitty situation with another ghost probably sitting right beside him.

 _Ah_ , he thought, _that sounded perfectly sane_.

“What were you winning? Why are there cards everywhere?”

“I was winning the card game, Wooyoung, look!” San exclaimed, pointing at his all ace deck, pouting and whining at the same time and Wooyoung thought maybe if he moved to Alaska, he wouldn’t have to go through any of this.

Wooyoung then learned that San had a bunch of friends he liked to play cards with all the time since none of them needed to sleep, eat or pay a visit to the restroom and spent his time in some purgatory waiting room that was actually pretty nice and luxurious and hotel-like but the longer he stayed there, the more his sanity would be at risk. When he asked for further elaboration, San simply shrugged and smiled “I haven’t been there long enough.”

According to what San informed him later on when the clock struck about 2 am, Soobin was a 17 or 18 years old boy, and could not remember which it exactly was anymore, and had died almost a hundred years ago when the word somehow got around that he liked boys and _only_ boys while working at a very famous circus as a joggler. _His circus welcomed him with opened arms_ , he said, _but the people outside were not as welcoming_.

One day when Soobin was done with performing for one of the biggest shows of his circus ever and was heading to his hut that unfortunately stayed on a little bit more deserted sides of their site, some men cornered him, called his pink and curly hair _stupid_ and _too feminine_ and beat him up until he didn’t scream or move anymore, and then trapped him there probably forever because they were random drunk men who are most likely dead by now and Soobin was not able to go through with his unfinished business on earth.

Wooyoung felt chilly from the moment San opened his lips and closed them with a sad upwards curve to their corners but somehow did not feel even a bit of distress the longer they talked.

“But don’t worry, Young-ah, I can go since you are here now!” San squealed excitedly as he threw all of his cards in the air to have a card shower for himself and Wooyoung glared at him.

“I am not doing shit for you.”

San pouted cutely at the way Wooyoung scowled grumpily and Wooyoung had to try really hard to hide the smile threatening to curl his trembling lips.

It was stupid, probably a product of his heavily intoxicated brain drowning in sorrow or maybe simply because he did not take his pills that night but Wooyoung felt like he was the most content in months when he fell asleep to San’s bickering with Soobin apparently still sitting beside him about how they wouldn’t be able to eat donuts anymore and Soobin telling him he should leave the earthly desires behind him as Wooyoung drifted away.


	3. part one: promise me a place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you're a lover, you should know  
> The lonely moments just get lonelier  
> The longer you're in love
> 
> -house of memories, panic! at the disco

"Wooyoung-ah.”

Wooyoung slightly jumped up from where he was leaning against his broomstick, daydreaming about going home -to San, to be specific- and telling him about the really shitty day he just had in too big and overdramatic words when his co-worker that was assigned the same cleaning and closing the shop task, Eunjung, nudged him with her own plastic cleaning stick.

Wooyoung blinked at her scowl not directed at him but something, someone else inside the otherwise empty shop. “Yes, noona?”

“He got caught up again, look at the poor thing.” She jutted her lip out to emphasize the sympathy etched into her words and Wooyoung looked at her like he just woke up before he turned his head to see what she was nudging him about. Yeonjun. It was Yeonjun, with his head buried into his laptop and five empty coffee cups on his table.

Wooyoung rolled his eyes as he kept sweeping the awful dust that incredibly collected in only a day. “Stop talking like you’re 60, noona. He’ll be okay.”

“With those 5 cups of coffee and the way he looks like he would order a sixth if it wasn’t past 10 pm?” Eunjung shrugged as she raised her eyebrows matter-of-factly. Wooyoung sighed when a cloud of particularly huge dust collected on its own and rolled away with the breeze from his broom.

“Go tell your favorite customer we’re closed for today,” Eunjung said and Wooyoung almost squawked in outrage but pushed his lips shut when he caught another glimpse of Yeonjun having a prominent mental breakdown over something on his laptop.

“Noona, seriously…” He whisper-shouted and Eunjung, still insistent on not giving up about her constant nudging of Wooyoung, pushed him slightly towards the only occupied table a few feet away.

“Come on! I’ll do the rest, just go.” Eunjung pushed him a bit more and Wooyoung was a deer caught up on headlights for a second.

“Noona, wait, I will- I will do-” He stuttered as he was coerced to walk towards his current biggest enemy, and cleared his throat when the damage was done and he was standing right beside Yeonjun putting his head on the probably too coffee stained and greasy table. Yeonjun raised his head dramatically slow and squinted at him.

“U-um, we’re closed for today. I’m sorry but you should leave.” Wooyoung mumbled, too fast and too slow at the same time and Yeonjun looked at him, and then at the dark night sky through the windows, absolutely baffled.

“Oh, wow, I’m so sorry, I must’ve lost track of time.” He gulped, his normally neatly combed hair a disheveled mess, and then looked at Wooyoung with his cheeks slightly pink and his lips curved upwards into an abashed smile.

Wooyoung would be lying if his heart for a second did not betray him indefinitely.

He opened his mouth to say something else but all it did was open and close like a goldfish.

“Y-yes. You’re the only one left and we are closed.” Wooyoung managed to blurt out after a couple of seconds long worth of staring-off. Did he even make any sense? Was his voice a little too high towards the end? Yeonjun nodded his head anyways, saving him some of the overthinking, hastily closed his laptop and started packing his… drawing pad?..

“Ah, yes, I’m really sorry for the inconvenience.” He said as he stood up to put his blazer over his shoulders. Wooyoung gave him a small, very dishonest and maybe a little bit mean smile before he turned around to untie his apron.

“Ah, Wooyoung-ssi.” Yeonjun called when he was taking his apron off, the reassuring feeling of finally being out of his cloth cuff being interrupted crudely. Wooyoung closed his eyes for a second before he turned around to see Yeonjun looking at the floor, with the same pinkish tint to his cheeks and looked up into Wooyoung’s soul after a second.

“Would you like to walk home together?”

Wooyoung stopped with his hands up mid-air holding his apron, turned around to gawp at him for a few seconds that he reconsidered the offer. “I’m gonna be taking the bus though.”

Yeonjun blinked at the answer not being an instant rejection for a second, wide-eyed to the point his forehead slightly creased, nodded his head enthusiastic enough that Wooyoung worried about his neck for a second. “I take the bus too!” He collected his briefcase from the table clumsily as an empty cup rolled on the table to land on the floor and stood upright. “I can wait for you to get ready. Take as much as you want.”

Wooyoung looked at him and then the poor cup as it rolled until it hit the leg of the table, lowered his hands and wanted to maybe say _no, go away,_ or something in the context of Yeonjun being annoying and too pushy for no reason, but something in him, something in the way Yeonjun stood there eagerly as he held his suitcase with both hands told him to take a break from being a bitter bitch for a second.

“Sure. I’ll go take my stuff and then we can go.”

Yeonjun fiddled around with his briefcase and his own thumbs ever since Wooyoung came back wearing his -basically San’s, now that he went back to their apartment and had access to his clothes- black coat and they went out after Wooyoung paid his farewells to Eunjung accompanied with a stinky eye. The streets were, this time, not completely empty but did not have raging crowds like they did during the day. Wooyoung could not decide which he hated more.

Being in the middle of a raging crowd, being alone in the deserted streets or having company.

He got almost too startled when a car passed by and clutched his earphones in his coat pocket.

“It’s the first time I’m staying this late, right?” Yeonjun finally decided to break the awkward silence accompanied by the mild white noise of the city surrounding the both of them. “Really lost track of time there.”

Wooyoung did not raise his head as another car passed by, made his hands into fists as he gritted his teeth for a second. “Yes.” He said dryly, trying his best to bury the memory threatening to come at him full force. “What were you so focused on for so long?”

“Some stuff about work.” Yeonjun said. Wooyoung saw from the corner of his eye that he nodded with a content smile on his face. “I’ve been trying to draw this super detailed background for ages, it’s about to drive me insane, really.”

Wooyoung felt his breath hitch for a second. “You draw?..” He whispered, not even thinking Yeonjun would pick up on his voice over the sound of people chattering a few feet away from them.

“Yes! I’m a graphic designer, Wooyoung-ssi, have I mentioned before? I think I didn’t.” Yeonjun nodded his head to agree with himself once again on god knows what. “I mostly work on games, but they keep giving me those crazy backgrounds, I mean, my hands need to do other things too, you know! I can’t sustain a normal life and draw those one thousand colored ancient patterns, right?”

Another car passed by as its engine whirred angrily. Wooyoung didn’t feel like shit for a second as Yeonjun’s blabbering voice suppressed it slightly. “Is that so?..”

Yeonjun opened his eyes to look at him, curled his lips into an abashed smile. “Ah, sorry…” He said, biting his bottom lip quite adorably. “I talk too much when I’m nervous…”

“Oh, you don’t say,” Wooyoung murmured as a smile clung to his own lips, until another car passed by and tremors ran up his spine mercilessly. He gulped the lump in his throat, slow like he feared his throat might bleed from how much pressure he put on it. He had to physically suppress the need to plug his ears fiercely.

“So, what do you do, Wooyoung-ssi?” Yeonjun said, not letting the awkward silence linger for too much this time. Wooyoung raised his head to look at him with eyes on the brink of death. “Other than the coffee shop, of course.”

Wooyoung slightly shrugged as he looked at the night sky. “Ah… not much. I just work every day, and that’s pretty much all there is.”

Yeonjun smiled with a small nod of his head. A group of mostly drunk people passed by them, yelling and giggling like they were the center of the world. “Do you close the shop every day? It must be tiring.”

Another car drove past them with its engine whirring so loudly that probably people three streets down heard it clearly. “It is, but I kind of like working here. Keeps my mind distracted.” Wooyoung word vomited as he squeezed his eyes shut when his breath hitched in his throat, tried to get rid of the image staining the back of his eyelids in red, felt everything around him almost crash down over him as he held his coat pockets inside tight fists as an anchor, and braced himself for what’s to come because he was already _so_ tired and it was already past the time to take his medicine and he just wanted to go to San and cuddle next to him even if he couldn’t touch him but _the stupid cars just had to-_

“Yeah, the café is very nice, right, Wooyoung-ssi?” Yeonjun said rather gleefully, and every syllable that left his mouth slowly suppressed that voice currently going havoc inside Wooyoung’s brain, little by little, in a matter of seconds. Wooyoung opened his eyes and slowly drew the chilly night air into his desperate lungs and realized they were already at the bus stop.

"I come here for the same reason actually, you know, the white noise really helps. If I work at home my neighbors would probably kick me out because work sometimes gets too frustrating and I tend to scream.” Yeonjun giggled as he played with the rather longer part of his black hair in front of his eyes between his fingers, then looked at Wooyoung with a smile that crinkled his eyes in the most adorable ways.

Wooyoung felt his breath catch in his throat once more, this time for a different reason.

“Yes.” He said as a makeshift smile worked its way up to his lips amidst the confusion void he floated in for a couple of seconds. “Some of the days I’m in the danger of getting kicked out too.” He took another deep breath and felt a tiny bit of surprise because it didn’t feel like they were on fire _at all_. “My roommate always warns me but it’s like a second nature for me to be loud, I think.”

Yeonjun blinked as his eyebrows raised high enough that his forehead wrinkled. “Really? That doesn’t sound like you.” He stopped to think with an almost excited smile curving his lips. “Except when you yell for the orders, I guess.”

Wooyoung looked at him as he tilted his head and raised his eyebrows slightly. “You only see me when working, though.”

Yeonjun stopped to blink at him like Wooyoung just told him that his hair suddenly turned blue. “Oh… Right.” He said but blinked a bit more without prying his eyes from Wooyoung’s questioning ones for a couple more seconds. Like he wasn’t done yet. Like he wanted to say more.

The bus turned the corner of the street and Wooyoung took another breath in an attempt to get rid of the weird feeling in his chest. Yeonjun decided to finally look towards the bus stopping right in front of the bus stop. Another silence surrounded them but did not suffocate either as it went on.

“Young-ah!” was the first thing he heard when he unlocked the door to the apartment and tossed his bag to the side, accompanied by San’s overexcited face and dazzling smile just before he wrapped his arms around his shoulders.

Wooyoung felt nothing but the warm chilliness and smiled as it surrounded him.

“Why are you early today? Did they let you leave before cleaning?” San chirped when he pulled back to look at Wooyoung’s fond smile and Wooyoung nodded as he stood completely still not to go through San’s body, an act he disliked with a passion.

“Noona said I can leave early.”

San frowned for a second and backed off to give them enough space, Wooyoung had to stop himself from taking a step forward to feel the familiar cold once again. “Oh, you left with someone? Who is it?”

Wooyoung looked at his smile and the way his cheeks sunk in parts to create two adorable dimples and swelled up in another and shrugged his coat off with a sigh. “No one. Just some regular at the shop.” He dropped it down the floor in exhaustion and realized that it floated in the air to hang itself on the hanger beside the door with a sigh.

“San-ah.” Wooyoung said, with a warning tint to his voice and San pouted cutely. “But you put it on the floor and I worked so hard to tidy up everywhere and the floors needed to-” He started pout-blabbering and Wooyoung only sighed like he had a ton worth of weight on shoulders trying to drag him down. San pouted even more. “Okay, okay. No ghost shenanigans.”

Wooyoung kept the façade on for another couple of minutes and then let the fondest of smiles return to lift the corners of his lips. “I know it’s not like we can hug or anything but, lie down with me?”

San mirrored his smile and only magnified it with a sinful twist that made him look too much like how he used to be for a second and made Wooyoung’s heart skip a beat without a pity. “Oh, you know I will.”

Wooyoung fake air kicked him with a frown and a “Stop teasing me!” as San giggled away towards the bedroom.

“Why are you in a good mood, Young-ah? Did you like being with that guy so much?”

“I said stop teasing me, oh my god!” Wooyoung shrieked as he ran after San but let a giggle of his own slip too.

Even though it wasn’t like they could actually cuddle, or San could actually touch Wooyoung’s sleeping face with the softest of touches, he still loved watching Wooyoung sleep is what San realized over the last couple of hours of his ghost life.

Was it considered creepy that a ghost watched you sleep? Maybe. But was Wooyoung’s light snoring too cute to resist leaving to go play cards in the purgatory hall with hundreds of years old ghosts? Yes. Absolutely yes.

San giggled silently with a hand over his smiling mouth when Wooyoung murmured something unintelligible and turned around to roll away from San’s coldness. He didn’t remember anything about the times they both spent on this bed that he- hovered over? Horizontally? Other than what Wooyoung thought about, maybe dreamt about, and maybe in that aspect he should’ve been feeling like a stranger but thinking Wooyoung was cute and adorable was a simple instinct.

“San-ah.” San heard the familiar shrill voice reverberate throughout the room in an ethereal way and smiled a little, knowing if he could find the strength to pry his eyes from Wooyoung holding the edge of his pillow for dear life, for whatever reason he couldn’t get a grasp of, he would see the boy with pink curly hair and cutest freckles all over his cheeks and nose standing there.

“Soobin! Where were you?” San said and smiled at the way Wooyoung murmured a bit more.

“I was playing, but, San-ah. Where were _you_ , we were waiting.”

San couldn’t bring himself to get distracted for a couple of seconds from the way Wooyoung’s chest heaved up and down with deep breaths. “Here.”

San couldn’t see but could sense that he was smiling from his voice. “Watching him?” He nodded.

“Why?” Soobin asked. San had to think for a bit more before an answer popped in his head. “I don’t know. I think he wants me to be here.”

Soobin did not say anything for a few seconds that San could only hear Wooyoung’s breathing. “He might be binding you too much, San-ah.”

“I told you I don’t know what that means, Soobin.” San said giggling but stopped in alarm when it made Wooyoung stir in his sleep a bit too much. He didn’t know lots of things. He was too new to know anything about the world he was stuck in.

Soobin sighed but San knew it wasn’t because he was mad. Soobin never got mad at San. “It means that-” He started, but then stopped abruptly. San raised his head to look at Soobin, wondering what made him stop like that, and saw him frowning a little at Wooyoung. “I think something’s wrong.”

San only blinked at him innocently. “What is?”

“I think he’s running a fever,” Soobin said calmly as San watched him walk closer to sit at the edge of their bed with widened eyes. “Wake him up to see if he is. We can’t feel it.”

San nodded his head while hastily sitting up. “Wooyoung-ah?” He said, careful, and pouted when all Wooyoung did was murmur some more. “Young-ah, wake up. You might have a fever. I can’t feel it.”

Wooyoung halted his lips as San talked, his eyebrows came together to form a frown and San finally flipped the lights on with his _ghost shenanigans_ to see that Wooyoung’s cheeks and nose were all pinkish with a sheer layer of sweat gleaming over his frown. San gasped like he could actually breathe. An innocent sound like anything he ever did.

Wooyoung, disgruntled by the suddenly luminous room, fluttered his eyes open and looked towards where San was laying down a couple of seconds ago. San immediately knew. He was running a fever. A bad one. A panic so strong that he didn’t know he was capable of feeling rushed over him in an instant. He felt somewhere around where his stomach was churn uncomfortably.

“Soobin, what am I going do?” He said as his eyes went from Soobin fondly smiling at him to Wooyoung murmuring, still unintelligible, with his eyes now slightly open but concerningly unfocused.

“Go bring some cold water and some unused clothes,” Soobin said, still calm as ever, contrary to San looking like he would start fuming in the head with how much he was panicking. How he felt like that, he wondered. He never felt anything other than some basic emotions that felt like they were covered with a numbing sheet over them, but what exactly was this?.. This strong feeling?..

He nodded his head hurriedly and looked down at Wooyoung grimacing as a drop of sweat dripped down to disappear on his pillow. It hurt. San couldn’t feel it, but he knew. “Young-ah, I’ll bring some things, okay? Hang in there a little bit.” He said and attempted to get up to literally run -or maybe hover over the floor, he didn’t know- right away but he couldn’t when a hand on his arm forced him to stay still. He turned around to tell Soobin off in a hurry, because how dare he stop San when Wooyoung was _hurting_ , but it wasn’t him.

It was Wooyoung. _Holding_ San’s arm and not letting go.

“Sanie…” He whispered. “Don’t go…”

San looked at the hand holding him in place, wide-eyed, and then looked Soobin watching Wooyoung sniff, with a smile San couldn’t understand. “Interesting…” He said before turning his too intense gaze to San’s scared one and smiling with a tilt of his head, saying “Wet the cloth and put it over his forehead and neck. I’ll come back to check on you later.” and then disappeared just like that.

“N-no, Soobin-ah-” San started before Soobin was no more and looked at Wooyoung when he tightened his grip on his arm _that he was not supposed to touch, what the hell,_ and gulped. There they were. The memories he did not remember at all, but his body was there to live.

Wooyoung whispered again, his eyelids surrendering to exhaustion. “Sanie, why did you go?..” A couple more sweat drops disappeared on the pillow, following one another.

San stopped when a record of him yelling at Wooyoung and Wooyoung yelling back at him started playing in his head. He smiled a little. Records like that always played in his head but why were they all hurtful?

“Baby.” He said, without even meaning to. “I should go to get some cold water for you. Soobin said I should. Let me go for a second.”

Wooyoung shook his head from side to side, tugged on San’s arm and opened his eyes slightly once again. “You will leave me again… Don’t- don’t leave me… You always do...”

San looked at them and saw. Saw how he yelled as much as his vocal cords were capable of just to stop, look at Wooyoung’s face in the brink of crying and would shoot his last shot, saying he was leaving, that he shouldn’t follow him or he will never come back, he shouldn’t call or he would never see his face again, just to turn around as Wooyoung would fall down on the couch behind him when his knees collided with it, sobbing, and would not even hesitate before slamming the door behind him, even though he knew Wooyoung got easily triggered by loud sounds when he was in that state.

San looked at them and saw, _felt_ all the pain reflected in them as a little bit of it rolled down in the form of a tear and carefully held Wooyoung’s hand, gently pried his fingers off his arm and intertwined them with his cold ones. “Why did I do that?..” He smiled, bitter. Like he was mourning. Not for that man, but for the other that cried on the same couch for hours before he collapsed, fell asleep without moving an inch with tears still on his face.

Wooyoung sniffed, he couldn’t open his eyes was what San gathered simply from his thoughts, other than that he felt too cold. “I don’t know… I always wanted to… wanted you to… just not go… Just- just don’t leave me…” He whispered. San wondered if he could reach and wipe the tears off his face. Maybe, now that he could hold his hand. He decided against it for the time being.

“Baby, I need to take care of your fever. I promise I won’t go this time.” He whispered, stroked Wooyoung’s hand with his thumb slowly, in an attempt to calm him down. He didn’t know why. It was an instinct, just like everything he did not do on purpose right then.

Wooyoung sniffled once more, opened his eyes and actually put the effort in trying to have his focus on San’s reassuring gaze, tightened their fingers. “Promise?” He whispered. Another tear rolled down to disappear on the pillow. San thought about it. Maybe for a second too long.

“Promise.” He whispered before his thoughts could stop him. Wooyoung looked at him, the roots of his black hair shining with sweat, cheeks red and breath a tiny bit shallow, and released his hand.

When Wooyoung woke up the next morning, his throat _hurt_ hurt. His head felt like it was splitting in two with his bones accompanying it as they ached in unison and he felt like he was dying for a second when he couldn’t get up from the bed properly during his first few tries.

He took in a shaky breath and looked around to see if San was there, like how they were laying down on the same bed the previous night, but all he could see was the sunlight peeking in and making his already hurting head pound even more and empty walls staring at him. When his attempts at standing on his feet were successful and he walked the excruciating way that led to the living room, he saw San sitting over the coffee table with a _baseball_ in his hand.

“Wooyoung-ie! You’re finally awake.” San chirped and stopped throwing the ball in the air just to catch it once more. Wooyoung opened his mouth to ask what the fuck was up with the ball, but instead even that much risked coughing his lungs out in the process. San looked at Wooyoung’s disheveled hair, dark circles under his eye and how pale his face was and pouted as the ball in his hand disappeared. “Oh, you’re really sick.” He murmured silently as he waited for Wooyoung’s cough fit to go away and patted the sofa in front of him. “Come sit.”

Wooyoung did and his whole body thanked him for not standing up anymore. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back to block as much sunlight as possible. “Why are you here?” was the first sentence that left his hoarse throat and it absolutely derived discomfort.

San smiled as he turned his body towards him. “I told you, Young-ah. Your thought process-” He started but was cut off with Wooyoung’s coughing. “No, oh my god, if you tell me _hat_ one more time-not _that_ -” More coughing. “I’m asking why you were waiting here.”

“Oh. Soobin was here.” San said. Wooyoung waited for a second when his voice didn’t sound as cheery as it normally did.

“He’s not here now?”

“No.” San shook his head from side to side. “He was mad, so he left.” He was still smiling but it didn’t feel like it wasn’t the kind to reach his eyes this time. Wooyoung frowned as he momentarily forgot about his mild agony. “Why was he mad?”

“Stop feeling like that, it affects me too!” San whined hopping on the coffee table, totally unlike how he used to be and Wooyoung frowned even more.

“Why was he mad, Choi San?” Wooyoung put emphasis on every syllable and San pouted as he played with the hem of his white over-sized printed t-shirt with a light denim jacket over that looked kind of too much like what he used to wear?..

“Give me your hand.” San sighed like he could actually breathe and Wooyoung looked at him, puzzled. “What?”

“Give me your hand, hurry.” San rushed as he waved his own hand in the air and Wooyoung tried really hard not to grimace when he did, and it went right through San’s.

“So it really is gone…” San murmured, more to himself but Wooyoung couldn’t shake off the feeling of coldness and nothing else on his skin.

“Why did you do that? You know I hate it.” Wooyoung coughed a bit more, mainly to cover up the bitterness in his voice and San smiled while retracting his hand.

“You could touch me.”

Wooyoung felt another pang in his head that he could swear that left a crack on his skull as he frowned even more like it was possible. “What?”

“You had a very bad fever,” San explained calmly as he put a plain smile on his face. Like he was drained of any emotion. “I was trying to take care of you, but you held my arm and did not let go of me. Soobin was there too.”

Wooyoung did not realize he stopped breathing until his already suffering lungs started to burn pathetically and his eyes dried from keeping them on San just looking at him. “I could… what?”

“Touch me! You didn’t even let me go until I pried your hand off.” San said like he was telling regular a story and Wooyoung momentarily drowned in confusion. “And then you made me promise that I wouldn’t leave this time. Soobin got mad at me for promising.” He nodded slightly to self-affirm. “Said it will cause problems if I promise. Because I have to go soon.”

Wooyoung tried to gulp down the painful knot in his throat that maybe only was the product of his terrible cold, or maybe because the words that he so stubbornly did not want to admit were being voiced directly by their addressee and he just _was not_ ready.

“What do you mean I made you promise? I don’t even remember any of this bullshit.” He snapped. What San said without even paying any mind to it kept reverberating in his head. _I have to go_ , he said. _Soon_ , he said.

San only kept smiling with a cute tilt of his head. “You had a bad fever, Wooyoung-ah. It’s unsurprising if you don’t.”

“You’re telling me I touched you, how could I forget that?!” Wooyoung yelled, frustrated and another coughing fit convulsed his body into itself like a revolt.

“Stop yelling, baby, it won’t be good for your throat.” San said, even though what he said was supposed to be caring and worried sounding, all it sounded like was an artificial intelligence answering a simple question and Wooyoung felt so overwhelmed to deal with any of it.

“I said fucking stop calling me that! You’re not even San, just fucking stop, okay?!” He yelled at the top of his vocal cords’ capacity and did not care that even worse of a coughing wave washed over him as he stood up to get rid of any sleepwear he was wearing on the way to the bedroom. “You’re telling me I touched a fucking ghost, like, stop giving me this bullshit, I swear to god!” He kept yelling and coughing and throwing clothes on the ground just to put on whatever he found as his own, not paying any mind that San trailed him in his every move.

“Young-ah, you know I am telling you the truth. Why would I lie about something like that?” San said when Wooyoung started shoving everything he previously brought into his poor backpack, running around the room like a chicken.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe to make me go even more insane, like how you made me believe in your existence.” Wooyoung retorted in a moment of anger as he shoved his pills in the deepest part of the large bag, feeling like they were going in circles at this point. He hated it. He hated that he had to face the harsh reality and hated that everything just had to come this.

San stopped tailing him around and Wooyoung took a breath of relief when the chilliness stopped following him around. “Young-ah, don’t do this.” He said, with the phantom of some disappointment in his ethereal voice as it echoed around the house. Wooyoung momentarily stopped everything he was doing and turned around to point an accusing finger towards San looking at him almost like he was broken. “Stop calling me that, too, oh my god!” He yelled uncontrollably, supposed it would lift the disgusting weight off of his chest but all it did was add to it the more he opened his mouth. “San never called me that, it feels disgusting, okay?! Just fucking stop!”

For the longest of times, the only sound present in the room was Wooyoung’s ragged panting and San did not move. He looked at Wooyoung, like he was waiting for him finish patiently, with a look on his pale face that Wooyoung hated the paleness of so fucking much, with his eyes lively but at the same time dull and lifeless, his mullet colored a greyish blue like the times when they first met _and it was just too much_ -

“Okay.” San whispered, not even sounding hurt, only like he was being understanding to the fullest in the oddest way possible to Wooyoung because he was not used to it. He was used to being yelled back at, being belittled, being left behind just for him to come back and pick up the pieces he himself scattered around and glue them back together skillfully because he had done it so many times that he mastered it.

So when San disappeared just like that, abrupt and not even hurt from what Wooyoung practically screamed at his face, Wooyoung felt something slightly ache in his chest, like this was not how this morning was supposed to go, like it all went south all of a sudden very unwillingly, but did not let it stop him from walking out the door in absolute determination nevertheless.


	4. part one: heartbreaks and decided farewells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor changes bc puma mv came out yeonjun just HAD to get a lip piercing lol  
> also update coming in shortly~

Wooyoung drew the night air inside his lungs and grinned when his still stuffed nose couldn’t pick up the scent of the big trashcan that he just dumped a whole day's worth of coffee shop trash into. It was one of those days; he and Eunjung had to clear after the mindless come and goers, close the shop, take care of the counter, and go home, just to do it over the other day.

Eunjung had let him go after putting out the trash because she was The Goddess and it was Wooyoung’s first workday after a four day of calling in sick with the terrible flu he had, most likely a product of the times he was running around with short sleeves while it was still the cold of February, or the times he was sitting outside, just because he liked the chill, the familiarity it gave him. For reasons he did not like to admit.

It had been four days.

Four days, he walked out and did not look back as he ran into the warm arms of Yeosang.

Because it felt safe. It felt real. Like he wasn’t actually going insane.

Four days ago, Yeosang looked at him in the eye and gave him the most well-put scolding he ever gave him because _how dare he desert him like that, stay in an empty house just to come back sick as fuck with a fever reaching worrisome degrees_ and Wooyoung cried as he promised not to go there ever again because he was right, and maybe kind of because the fever made his logical thinking a bit too hazy for his taste.

And then Yeosang actually checked upon him. Not the flu-wise, but a _check-up_ check-up, as in _Wooyoung-ie, are you sure you’re okay lately?-_ wise and Wooyoung, for the longest of times, did not know what to answer; was too scared to answer, was even more scared to say he missed his last two appointments, with no valid excuses whatsoever.

He surpassed a dry coughing fit that annoyingly still lingered as he walked back inside and saw Eunjung washing the last of the trays.

“Noona, are you sure you can do everything? I’m not sick anymore, you know.” He said with a worried tint to his still unpleasantly hoarse voice and Eunjung frowned as she dried her hands on his apron.

“You’re sick alright, you dumbass. Now go get dressed and go home to sleep, okay?” She scolded with even more worry etched into her words, like it was a competition. Worry like the time Wooyoung finally remembered to call in sick and Eunjung told him over the phone that he already called in the morning, _was he okay_ and _was his fever so bad that he didn’t remember_ , then proceeded to blabber and question his wellbeing for another twenty minutes. The thing was that, no, no, he didn’t. He was absolutely sure that he was knocked out the whole morning and absolutely did not have his phone even close to himself, at all. He didn’t want to think about how that might have happened either.

“But, noona, I’m really-” Wooyoung started for the nth time this past hour and Eunjung raised his hand along with her eyebrows to the max. “I said it’s okay.” She emphasized. “I’m already done with everything. Just go get dressed.”

Wooyoung pouted but then smiled, all teeth and eye smile. “Noona, I would hug you and maybe add a spin right now, but I don’t want you to get sick.”

Eunjung hid a chuckle behind her still damp hand and waved him off. Wooyoung giggled until another coughing fit paralyzed him for a few seconds in front of the hangers, quickly donned his heaviest coat and scarf, both forced on him by Yeosang before he left for work in the morning, hanged his backpack over his shoulder and turned around to see Yeonjun standing by the doorway with a smile so big it made his eyes look like little crescents on his face.

Yes, of course, there was still Yeonjun. Yeonjun that, as reported by Eunjung earlier in the day, asked about him every day he missed work. Yeonjun that, again reported by Eunjung, never once in the meantime that he was a regular did not order coffee for takeout, did so for the half of the days Wooyoung was absent and called it a day.

Wooyoung had no idea what to think about it.

“Wooyoung-ssi!” Yeonjun called out probably on the thought that Wooyoung was not purposefully ignoring him as he walked towards the door and raised his non-bag holding hand into a tiny wave. Wooyoung stopped with a subtle eye roll, not towards Yeonjun.

“Hi.” He said, his voice not very unwillingly showing his distaste as he opened the door for both of them. Yeonjun smiled even more like it was possible, as a heartfelt thank you escaped his stretched mouth.

“Are you feeling better now, Wooyoung-ssi? I heard you got sick.” Yeonjun asked almost shyly as they started walking down the empty streets lit by orange lights.

Wooyoung gritted his teeth as a car drove past them without paying any mind to traffic lights flaring red. _Here we fucking go_ , his mind growled. Where Yeonjun existed, the fucking cars had to penetrate his eardrums simultaneously.

“Yes. I’m better now.” He said dismissively before he adjusted his bag strap uncomfortably.

“Really? Your coughing earlier didn’t sound so great.” Yeonjun chuckled slightly, obviously trying to make small talk and maybe ease the discomfort surrounding both of them as they walked, but a damn car had to pass by right when Wooyoung opened his mouth and shove whatever answer he thought about down his throat.

“It’s-” He stopped and gulped heavily, thought fast and hard how to complete. “It’s getting better.”

“Ah, that’s great. The shop was kinda dull without Wooyoung-ssi’s yelling for coffee there.” Yeonjun said as a smile kept curving his lips adorably, but Wooyoung only pushed his own together and turned towards the street leading to Yeosang’s apartment. Yeonjun stopped to blink at him when he finally caught himself.

“Oh, Wooyoung-ssi, you’re not taking the bus today?”

Wooyoung stopped, right in the middle of the street, looked at him with straight dead eyes and his hands clutching his earphones for dear life. “I will be walking.”

“Do you want me to walk with you? It’s quite late.” Yeonjun said and the hopeful tint to his cheery voice was kind of the last drop in the Wooyoung’s very little patience pot.

“See, Yeonjun-ssi.” Wooyoung sighed as he closed his eyes for a second just to open them and see Yeonjun’s smile get dampened. “You are a customer and I am a barista at the coffee shop that you are a regular at. Let’s not cross that border.”

Another car drove a couple of streets down and Yeonjun’s smile disappeared until another one that tried so hard to hide the disappointment that replaced it without missing a beat after the silence filled with the white noise of the city. Wooyoung could see the two hands holding the strap of his briefcase and how the knuckles turned slightly white.

“I see,” Yeonjun said after his eyes wandered around nothing before they landed on Wooyoung’s faint scowl. “Have a good night, Wooyoung-ssi.”

Wooyoung rolled his eyes slightly as he turned around to keep walking. “Yeah. You too.”

But when Yeonjun did exactly _that_ for the next day, or the other, or the other, he was surprisingly not pleased with the outcome.

Wooyoung did not know what exactly he was expecting. Maybe Yeonjun to not even come to the café anymore, or maybe that he kept bugging him like the conversation that night did not happen at all, which was actually what he expected to happen, but when Yeonjun walked through the doorway just like every other day, ordered his coffee and set up a table for himself to work on for the rest of the day, without asking him how his day was or which coffee he would recommend today or if his throat was still killing him like yesterday or maybe if he was taking the bus today, Wooyoung did not like it one bit.

“Noona, don’t you think that guy is acting weird lately?” He asked Eunjung when he caught her smoking by the backdoor during her break on one of the days of being neglected by _the_ annoying Yeonjun.

“What guy?” Eunjung said as she puffed out a ring of smoke. Wooyoung waved his hand around and brutally dissolved it in the air.

“Yeonjun guy!” He whisper-yelled. “The one that is going to die from coffee poisoning.”

Eunjung laughed as she breathed in smoke and the tip of her cigarette lit up red for a second. “What about him?”

“You seriously did not realize? He’s acting like he doesn’t even recognize me, noona!” Wooyoung flailed his arms in the air in frustration and looked around to see if anyone heard his whining before closing in to whisper. “I think he might be mad at me.”

Eunjung chuckled a bit too loud as she threw her still smoking cigarette on the floor to crush it under her designer shoes Wooyoung was not sure how she possessed with a barista paycheck as he got flustered trying to make her be quiet. “Why would he be mad at you all of a sudden?”

“You really don’t know??” He raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Didn’t you see how walked straight to buy coffee this morning just to go to his table like he forgot his stove on? Even though I literally gave him a free coffee??”

Eunjung laughed even louder until Wooyoung started jumping in place to make her stop. “What is he supposed to do, Wooyoung-ah? Do a somersault on the way back while trying not to spill his free americano?”

Wooyoung pouted as hard as he could as he put his arms together on his chest in childish petulance. “I literally will not tell you about anything anymore.” He grumbled with an attempt to walk back inside but Eunjung held his arm to keep him in place while simultaneously laughing at his antics. “Just stop sulking and tell me what it is. Did you tell him something?”

Wooyoung stopped trying to squirm away and run straight inside momentarily because yes, he did tell him something. He freed himself from Eunjung’s firm hold and crushed the butt on the concrete further. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Eunjung frowned. “What do you mean _maybe_? Did you tell him something?”

Wooyoung did not answer as he swayed from side to side.

“Wooyoung.” Eunjung pressed. “What did you tell him?”

Wooyoung whined under the sudden pressure before he took a deep breath to thread “I just told him he was a customer and I was a barista and we should remain that,” in a second.

Eunjung smacked him in the head. Straight at the back of his head, a firm and sturdy smack that almost echoed throughout the empty street.

“Noona!” Wooyoung whined even more with a hand on where Eunjung beat the shit out of and pouted. “What was that for??”

“It was to make you think, you dumbass. And you wonder why he treats you like that.”

Wooyoung watched her walk inside with a scowl on her face with a pout on his own and a hand over his head and flinched when she slammed the door on him.

It took Wooyoung a couple more days of cold shoulder to finally flip and do something about it.

As Yeonjun payed for his coffee with the card that Wooyoung was very familiar of and turned around to leave for his table, even his dry ass smiles extinct and _thank you_ ’s an unknown act of kindness at this point, Wooyoung literally jumped up to go over the counter and held Yeonjun’s arm before he could move an inch, as he yelled out “Yeonjun-ssi!” a bit too loud and a couple of heads from nearby tables turned towards them. Yeonjun stopped for a second too long before he turned around with a smile slightly too professional for Wooyoung’s liking. “Yes?”

Wooyoung couldn’t even stutter as those eyes looked right into his soul after such a long time. He released Yeonjun’s arm like it suddenly got too hot to hold with the realization that maybe it was an invasion of Yeonjun’s personal space, straightened his apron nervously and cleared his throat as he glanced away not to crash under the pressure of having to look straight into eyes of the man in front him.

“I- I just wanted to say… that I- I thought-” He babbled and cursed himself internally when he saw Yeonjun tilt his head slightly in question.

“I’m sorry for what I said that night.” He blurted out after a couple more seconds of feeling constipated and sighed in relief to hear it out. Yeonjun, as the foremost reaction, looked at him with eyebrows raised so high that the relief was gone almost instantly.

“What I’m saying is that, I really did not want to make you feel bad by saying what I said like that, it was just that- there is this thing I have and it keeps me on edge all the time when I’m outside and it was just that I-”

“Wooyoung-ssi, Wooyoung-ssi.” Yeonjun interrupted when Wooyoung’s head almost visibly started fuming from overthinking and Wooyoung raised his head back up to see Yeonjun _smiling at him_. With the smile he gave Wooyoung when he asked what coffee Wooyoung would want him to try, the smile when he would ask for a chocolate muffin and would learn they were fresh out of the oven.

When Wooyoung realized, on the other hand, which was very hard to admit even to himself, that it gave him slight butterflies in the stomach, he internally punched them into immobility.

“Yes?” He said with a voice that sounded like a rat with its tail stepped on. Yeonjun slightly laughed.

“You’re blabbering.”

“Oh.” He blinked and breathed slowly through his nose. “I am…”

“So, you’re telling me you didn’t mean what you said that night?” Yeonjun asked with an eyebrow perched up and Wooyoung blinked with wide eyes.

“U-um, not that I di-didn’t mean it, but-” He stuttered and Yeonjun looked at him with the deadest eyes before turning around to keep walking towards his table. “Oh, is that so?..”

Wooyoung held his arm once more to stop him, just to release it as soon as he sensed his feet slowing down. “Okay! Okay, I didn’t mean to be so harsh, I’m sorry.” He mumbled looking down to count the crossing points of the flooring. “I want to make it up.”

Yeonjun straight up smirked when he fully turned towards Wooyoung once again and did not even try to cover it up. “Make it up?” Wooyoung nodded with a makeshift pout. “What do you have in mind, Wooyoung-ssi?”

Wooyoung opened his mouth just to close it once again. “I- I was thinking… Free coffee. Every day for a week, on me…” He murmured and hoped very hard that it blended in with the delightful white noise of the café, because, damn, his paycheck was not ready for that.

Of course, it did not, as Yeonjun straight up laughed at his face. “Wooyoung-ssi, I think you could be more creative than that.”

Wooyoung frowned as much as his face muscles allowed him to. “What? What was Mr. Know-It-All thinking about then?”

“I was thinking that, maybe, a date?” Yeonjun said like he was ordering another large americano with soymilk and Wooyoung looked at him, scandalous.

“A _what_?” He gawked in outrage but Yeonjun only laughed _but was his laugh always that adorable?.._

“If you don’t want to, I’ll be working on my project…” Yeonjun pointed his thumb towards his laptop open and pathetically waiting for him over this table and Wooyoung considered very seriously for a second that maybe he was going into something he really should have not.

“Okay!” Wooyoung sighed in defeat. “Okay, a date it is.” He averted his gaze to the sunlight oozing inside from the glass walls of the shop and almost felt the warmth under his skin, surprisingly familiar. “Nothing fancy or I’ll bail.”

Yeonjun giggled like he couldn’t hold it. “A coffee date then?”

In the time being, Wooyoung learned that Yeonjun was 24 years old, graduated 3 years ago because he went to school earlier than his peers, has been working at an actually pretty known company as a graphic designer which scouted him to work for them during his college years because he was that kid that cried about his exam going super shitty for days but then got a full score every time, and loved his job a bit too much that did not shut up about it for more than 5 minutes.

Also learned that he was a closeted punk kid that actually had a ton of piercings, including a lip one that he showed up to the date with and almost made Wooyoung have a heart attack because, _damn_ he looked good. Wooyoung almost felt sorry that he had to surrender to the corporate life and take them off when he worked.

And all throughout their little dinner date, Wooyoung’s impression of him about how he was _annoying_ and _maybe a bit dumb_ did not change, but at the same time he couldn’t hold back the shy giggles that lingered into heartfelt smiles and stupid butterflies churning his stomach every time Yeonjun smiled at him either.

 _Too bad_ , he thought at the end of their little date as Yeonjun walked him to the bus stop, _too bad I will never be able to be with anyone again._

Park Seonghwa was not specifically a jealous man.

If anything, he could even be considered too open-minded when it came to human interaction. Like Yeosang interacting with people that were interested in himself, to the point he had to smack Seonghwa in the head for not caring enough.

But when Wooyoung came from work every day just to plop himself on Yeosang’s lap to cuddle him for hours on end, whether he was there or not a mere, trivial matter, Seonghwa didn’t like it one bit.

So that day too, when Wooyoung stumbled inside with a pout curving his lips as he simultaneously threw his jacket and backpack on the floor to curled into Yeosang’s lap with a whispered _hi_ , Seonghwa felt like throwing up.

Yeosang raised his head to smile at him as he accepted him with such familiarity and started petting his hair like it was such a normal thing to do while your boyfriend would be sitting right next to you, completely ignored the movie they were supposed to be watching together.

“You should wash your hands, Wooyoung-ie.”

Wooyoung nuzzled his neck as he closed his eyes. “I will, I will…” He mumbled with a sigh and Yeosang pulled slightly at his black hair with a fond smile. “Are you hungry?” Yeosang asked like Wooyoung was three and could not heat up leftovers for himself right and then they went to the kitchen before paying even a glance towards Seonghwa’s direction.

Now, it wasn’t even that Seonghwa had anything against the guy. It was Wooyoung that looked at him and decided to hate his guts at first glance when all Seonghwa did was having a tiny crush on his -now a little bit _dead_ \- boyfriend when San didn’t even tell him he was taken as he spellbound him with all of his flirtatiousness. And he really wanted to tell him that, confront his stupid prejudices about himself thoroughly, but Yeosang wouldn’t let him. Because, _apparently_ that was still a sensitive topic to Wooyoung, even when almost a year was already gone since San passed away.

Seonghwa perfectly knew, how Wooyoung had issues, how he had to spend five months in a facility, and according to Yeosang, his parents were also shitty- weren’t even there for him when he was at his lowest, always found a way to kick him when he was on the floor. But there was a limit for Seonghwa to ignore or endure Wooyoung’s antics. A limit that could not overlook the glances Wooyoung gave him when he did absolutely nothing and was not pleased when he spouted bullshit about him when there was nothing to get mad at.

The problem was that Yeosang didn’t have any of that. There was no end to his care for Wooyoung and Seonghwa could understand that to an extent, they were friends for so long and were through highs and lows, it was just that, sometimes, he felt that Yeosang was taking him granted, and maybe he should be the one acting all selfish for once because he played the good guy for so long.

So he decided that maybe he shouldn’t be giving them the space he normally would and join them that night, just to see what will happen. He walked in to grab a glass of water, as casual as it looked, and hearty giggles and Yeosang’s motherly scolding that was reverberating through the corridor just a second ago was exchanged for an awkward silence, just like he expected. Wooyoung raised his head to give a look at him, insinuating he is the reason for everything bad in his life and proceeded to eat his meal, while Yeosang gave Seonghwa a smile which would normally make him smile back but not right then, given the circumstances.

“Are you hungry? There is still some-”

“No, there is not.” Wooyoung cut Yeosang off with his mouth full and brows furrowed into a childish arrogance.

“Be honest.” Yeosang laughed at Wooyoung trying to stuff even more into his already full mouth. “Are they not giving you any lunch break? Because, that’s kind of illegal, they can’t make you work all day and not give you food, Wooyoung-ah…”

Wooyoung opened his mouth to answer and magically did not grossly spill anything on his plate but Seonghwa beat him to it as he grabbed a glass. “I was just gonna get some water actually.” No one said anything until he filled and downed the whole glass in a couple of seconds. “Are we finishing the movie or what?” He said, snarky but it wasn’t who he intended that responded.

“What movie?” Wooyoung asked Yeosang as he proceeded to completely ignore Seonghwa’s presence.

“Oh, we were watching that movie that came out a few weeks ago. The one with the clown.”

Wooyoung kept eating with a face. “I heard it doesn’t hold up to the first one.”

Yeosang shrugged, disregardful. “I was kinda enjoying, but I guess it doesn’t.”

Seonghwa wanted to crawl into a corner until the urge to yell to the world how Yeosang being compliant to everything that comes out of Wooyoung’s mouth was so fucking annoying disappeared.

“I want to finish it.” Seonghwa said with the tone to his voice that he used when he wanted to make Yeosang do just anything.

“Okay, okay.” Yeosang giggled as rested his chin on his open palm. “I’ll wait for Wooyoung-ie to finish so he doesn’t eat alone, then we can watch, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay.” Seonghwa sighed involuntarily as he gave Yeosang a chaste kiss on the mouth, which drew a roll of his eyes out of Wooyoung that he didn’t even bother hiding.

Wooyoung didn’t bother to hide that he completely neglected the existence of him when they returned to the living room, twenty minutes after Seonghwa waited through their giggling and talking about each other’s day through the corridor, and then completely ruined their supposedly movie night of boyfriends when he was basically lying on top of Yeosang and he cuddled Wooyoung without any hesitation. Seonghwa sighed. This night was not supposed to go this way.

After half an hour of enduring their muted interaction and sighing so much that his head started to spin at some point, Wooyoung whispered something into Yeosang’s ear to which he giggled along, and Seonghwa finally lost it.

“Will you just please shut up and watch the movie, I cannot even focus.”

Yeosang immediately started frowning and Seonghwa felt his eye twitch.

“You’re not even watching; you’re just sulking because of god knows why,” Wooyoung said as he sent him a look like he has never done anything wrong in his life.

“Are you kidding me?? For fucks’ sake, just get off of my boyfriend already, you think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?” Seonghwa snapped without even thinking what he was saying through, but he was too fed up to just keep watching.

“What are you even implying?” Wooyoung said as he sat up with a grimace bringing his eyebrows together.

“It’s no secret you don’t like me, but I thought you could at least put up with me, you know? But all you’re trying to do right now is jump on my boyfriend right in front of my eyes, like, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Put up with _you_? Jump on y _our_ boyfriend? Are you hearing yourself? We’ve been best friends for years and how many months have you been in his life? Eight?” He sat up straight, clearly offended. “If you’re not gonna handle us being friends and act all insecure about it, maybe you’ve never been the right fit for Yeosang-ie anyways.”

Yeosang gasped slowly with a face as scandalized as it could be as he looked between the two. “Jung Wooyoung, stop it. Hyung, please, can you just not fight, so that we can finish the movie?”

Seonghwa looked at him, ignored Wooyoung rolling his eyes like his eyes would pop out, incredulous. “Aren’t you gonna call him out? He just belittled our relationship and all you have to say is _stop it_ and pretend like I’m the problem here??”

“Well, you did start this-” Wooyoung started, as Yeosang simultaneously said “If you stop, he will too…”

“You’re doing it again!” He said, emphasizing every word with delicacy. “Stop fucking babying him! He is not gonna break if you just tell him off for once! You can’t hold back all the time.”

Wooyoung stopped as the words hanged in the air, turned towards Yeosang with a frown as the whole mood changed to another, not for the better.

“What was that supposed to mean? What are you holding back?”

“It’s nothing Wooyoung.” Yeosang tried. “Can we just drop this dumbass argument and finish the movie, please…”

“No.” Wooyoung insisted. “Tell me what it is. Am I too much now? You don’t want me here? Is my existence bothersome? What is it so bad that you can talk to _him_ and not tell me??”

“Wooyoung, no, it’s not like that—You’re welcomed here as long as you want. I even told you that we can put your name on the lease too since you have a job now-"

“Wait, wait, when did _that_ happen?” Seonghwa interrupted in the sudden fear of this being a permanent thing, in the fear that his every movie night with Yeosang would be sabotaged like this and Wooyoung yelled at him at the top of his lungs when he lost the last of his patience that he did not have much of. “Do you _have to_ know about everything, this isn’t about you!”

“You really want him as a roommate while complaining every day about his irresponsible ass?” Seonghwa asked Yeosang like Wooyoung was not sitting right beside him. The panic in Yeosang’s eyes grew exponentially as Wooyoung slowly turned around, looked into Yeosang’s wide eyes with so much hurt that he for a second wanted to scream.

“You complain about me?” Wooyoung whispered with the smallest voice he could muster.

“Look, Wooyoung, it’s not like that…”

“Stop saying that!”

“It’s- It’s because of the time you didn’t come home because- you stayed _there_ and you didn’t bother to even text me and I got worried so much, Woo. But now it’ s better, you know, you don’t go there at all, you have a steady job, you don’t miss your appointments and-”

“I can’t fucking believe this…” Seonghwa grumbled, to which Wooyoung lost all of the comfort he momentarily found in Yeosang’s explanation, frowned.

“What now?” He snapped.

“You keep telling me that you’re such best friends while all you do is use him and throw him away till you need him again, isn’t it? It’s always Yeosang-ie this, Yeosang-ie that… He is _not_ your caregiver!” He yelled, infuriated at whatever Wooyoung could not be very sure about.

“You’re so fucking selfish that you don’t even care what he has been going through. Like the time you just decided to drop him because- what, he punched your _precious_ boyfriend? He even apologized to him even though he shouldn’t have because he had every right to do that because -news flash- your boyfriend was kind of an asshole that flirted his way behind your fucking back, okay? And after _all of that shit,_ you just need someone to pamper you while you’re going through your breakdowns and even after all you went through he took you in, which he didn’t even have to apparently, because you already had a place. And he still keeps looking after you-”

“HYUNG, SHUT IT!” Yeosang yelled as much as his vocal cords allowed, cutting Seonghwa’s breathless rambling off and receiving an offended glare in return, but did not care as he himself was fuming in the head at this point. Wooyoung could only look at him, appalled, not even having enough time to process every word in his brain.

“Is this true?” He asked Yeosang, as he grimaced at the rather calm tint to his best friend’s voice.

“Wh-what?” He stammered.

“Did you apologize to him, back then…”

Yeosang blinked in confusion at the sudden change, most like the lack of arrogance. “I- I did, before I came to talk to you…”

“He never told me about it, that little shit.” A bitter smile curved Wooyoung’s lips before he straightened his back and looked at Seonghwa’s disturbed scowl. “For your information, I know- knew _my_ boyfriend, don’t worry. Why do you think I don’t like you?”

He turned his head toward Yeosang looking at him with absolute worry etched onto his feature along with anger and stood up.

“And Yeosang-ie, I’m really sorry, for what I put you through. I’ll pack my things and leave in the morning, given I _apparently_ had a place all along. It looks like you need to talk about your relationship.” He said while leaving the living room, not paying any mind to Yeosang’s worried babbling in haste as he slammed his temporary room’s door after himself.


	5. part two: regulus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this place where I breathe,  
> a flower that looks like you  
> is still with me,  
> not withering.  
> -regulus, onewe

The next morning, before even 9 am after a night of full of packing and little to no sleep at all, Wooyoung called work to get a vacation day -which Eunjung and the boss were both more than okay with-, paid Yeosang last of his farewells as he almost begged him not to leave and _it really was not like that,_ he was standing before the very familiar door once again. 

It had been more than one month.

More than one month since he left through this door after he yelled at the top of his lungs that he was disgusted, that _he_ was not real, was definitely not _San_.

More than one month since he left him for the nth time.

Wooyoung closed his eyes tightly and drew a deep breath into his lungs until someone trotted down the stairs and he had to adjust his huge suitcase closer to him. It wasn’t like he believed the ghost would hold grudges from the way he acted during the short period of time they coexisted, but then again Wooyoung yelled at him like he despised him when the ghost was only trying to tell him what happened as the fever had Wooyoung unconscious, and he was right, when Wooyoung thought about it. There was no justification to why he would lie about what happened. If anything, if Wooyoung believed that the ghost actually existed, not believing the touching part would have totally been two-facing.

Wooyoung raised his head in a fake determination and put the key in its respective hole. Maybe the ghost wasn’t even there anymore. Maybe it gave up when Wooyoung left and he could actually live here now without being roommates with an actual _ghost._

“San-ah?..” He whispered as he tried very hard not to let his voice shake from nerves. “Are you here?”

He left his suitcase near the door as it closed on its own, out of heaviness as Wooyoung hoped, and walked towards the living room in timid steps. The frames over the shelves throughout the corridor were still there, unmoved, but he realized they collected some dust over the edges. It was weird. How the house never caught dust or how the windows were always so clean even after a thunderstorm when he was here a month and a half ago and now San’s smiling face through the frame was almost dimmed in color. He felt his heart start running at the possibilities invading his brain.

“San-ah, if you’re here come out now, I’m getting scared.” He murmured as he dropped his backpack on the floor just before entering the living room and facing promptly nothing but the furniture that collected dust and the lack of fresh air as it slapped him in the face. The last time he came the house was empty for months, but it was in perfect condition with perfectly good air and no dust in sight, even in the nooks and crannies. He frowned.

“San-ah? Are you not here?” He said as he held the hem of his jacket so tight his knuckles turned white and waited, waited, waited as he heard the birds chirping outside and some car passing by with the muted sound of its engine passing by but nothing else. No excited “Young-ah!”, no coldness. Only silence and nothing else.

“Ah…” He let his lungs deflate as unshed tears slowly blurred his vision. “You’re gone… Of course…”

He sniffed as he let only one tear slip down, filled with guilt and remorse, turned around to pick his backpack up from the dusty floor and jumped up when he heard the familiar voice from behind him say “Wooyoung-ssi.”, so much that he almost toppled over with a scream.

“I said stop doing that. I am getting scared, San, oh my god!” He yelled in outrage when he stood straight and pointed an accusing finger at the ghost that appeared a few feet away from him behind the coffee table, weirdly wearing the exact red knitted sweater and black denim jacket San loved to wear a lot.

“Why?” San asked like he couldn’t read the terrified fumes coming out of Wooyoung in the form of sweat. His face had no emotional feature present and it almost gave Wooyoung goosebumps.

“Because-” He started but stopped to cough a little when he felt his breath get stuck in his throat. “I- I thought you were gone…”

“I told you.” San said with the stalest voice Wooyoung had ever heard from him. “I can’t go unless you let me go.”

Wooyoung gulped felt actual goosebumps when he felt the air around him tremble in chilliness. “Are you mad at me?..”

San waited for a second before a smile lit up his pale complexion. “You left me, Wooyoung-ssi. Again. Should I be mad at you?”

Wooyoung could only blink as San took a step forward and went through the coffee table swiftly. “Why- Why are you calling me that?” He stuttered. San took another step.

“What? ‘Wooyoung-ssi’?”

Wooyoung nodded, his lips shy of a pout.

“You said how I called disgusted you, didn’t you?” San said with a smile so pure it almost felt like it was underlying something else. “That _San_ never called you that way.”

Wooyoung gulped as San elegantly closed the gap between them and almost whined meekly as the coldness engulfed him softly.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, lowered his gaze to the floor. “I overreacted. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

San did not say anything for a couple of seconds. Wooyoung tried to make himself as small as possible as the comfort of chilliness was the only anchor reminding him that he was still there.

“Are you really sorry, Wooyoung-ssi?” San chirped as he turned around himself and broke the atmosphere with two steps back. Wooyoung raised his head, confusion etched onto his frown.

“Wh-what?”

“Are you really sorry?” San stopped, tied his hands behind his back and smiled with a tilt of his head. “When you think about someone else every time I call you ‘Wooyoung-ssi’.”

Wooyoung’s eyes widened to the point he for a second feared they might pop out. San giggled at the reaction as he sat down over the coffee table comfortably. “Oh~, I’m right.” He said as his tiny hops didn’t even budge the table. “Tell me about him. You went on a date? How was it? Do you like him?”

Wooyoung only stayed put where he was still gawking at him. “You- You’re not mad at me?” He murmured as he walked towards the couch San was sitting across, still bemused to the core. Wooyoung’s own breathing was the only sound present in the room for a few moments as he stared at San’s smile reach his dulling eyes.

“I can’t be mad at you.” San whispered but it was deafeningly audible as it resonated throughout the empty walls. “I can’t have negative emotions. It will have consequences.”

“Consequences?..” Wooyoung reverberated as he gathered his legs up to hug them with his chin resting over his knees. San shook his head from side to side with the same soothing smile curving his lips towards his adorable dimples as if telling him to just drop it. He did.

“Well, anyways-” Wooyoung started as he raised his eyebrows for punctuation reasons. “I’m here to stay for good so you don’t have to get mad at me.”

San nodded like an excited puppy would if puppies could nod. “I know already! Come on, tell me about that man!”

Wooyoung frowned and threw a pillow at him, which, as expected, flew right through San’s body. What was not expected was that San flinched as it went through him. Wooyoung opened his mouth to yell at him not to tease him but stopped midway when he saw San put a hand over where the pillow just penetrated.

“What? What happened?” Wooyoung stood up closer to hover a hand over San’s but San slid back with another one of his reassuring smiles.

“Nothing. It just felt weird.”

Wooyoung wanted to ask him why, how he could even _feel,_ what he meant by they could touch when Wooyoung was running a fever and what consequences he was talking about; but San’s eye smile and dimples told him to no, he needed to drop it for now and it was not that important anyways so he started talking about that weird man that was a weird regular at the coffee shop and how he was the most annoying being with impenetrable persistence and ignored him and his whining as he unpacked for the rest of the day when San told him _that is not what your brain is telling me at all_.

_“Baby, come on!” San said as he urged Wooyoung to stop fixing his black hair by dragging him down towards his lap with a hand around his waist._

_“Okay, okay, just a second, this hair keeps sticking out…” Wooyoung murmured as he tried to flatten this one strand that was a product of a very bad case of bed hair as he felt it pop up every time. San blew a raspberry into his stomach as he whined out another “Baby, your hair is beautiful, just come on,” and Wooyoung giggled into San’s hair, almost proceeding to knock the camera out of San’s other hand._

_They decided to fill out the obnoxious, empty frames in the corridor that day. Because San decided it would be a fun activity to take silly pictures to put into the expensive frames his mom's assistant got for the house. They were not at all San's taste and it was bit of an inside joke, though people often found their humor as a couple not so humorous._

_“I’m taking one, come on.” San laughed and took a couple of photos of Wooyoung still trying to fix the stray hair, making Wooyoung hide into his chest immediately and San giggle uncontrollably until he felt fists hitting his chest._

_“No, stop~, I’m ugly~!” Wooyoung whined as San kept shoving the camera close to his face with the fondest smile. “You know you’re the prettiest person on earth, Wooyoung-ah.” He said with a soft kiss on top of his head. Wooyoung felt the warmness of it all throughout his body._

_“Am I the prettiest?..” He murmured with the tiniest voice with only his eyes visible from San’s chest and San put another kiss on his forehead. It was the most natural thing that his eyes closed, and a smile spread his lips from where they were against the fabric of San’s shirt._

_“The most prettiest and you know it.”_

_Wooyoung giggled as he came out of hiding to press his lips over his boyfriend’s, wrapped his arms around his neck and felt his smile into the kiss and felt his arms around his waist and the rough edges of the camera he was still holding on his waist but it was cold._

_Everything felt cold._

Wooyoung opened his eyes. Now darkness engulfed him along with the familiar coldness.

“Do you want me to turn on the light?” He heard San whisper in the void. Not his San, yes, but he sounded the same.

“Yes…” He said with a broken, wet-sounding whisper. In not even a second the room illuminated just enough to see everything clearly. San was laying only a few inches away from him with a tight-lipped smile, his hair now with a white patch in front of the side as it fanned out over the other pillow.

It wasn’t his San, but he looked the same too.

He didn’t even realize he was crying until he hiccupped and all the air inside his lungs was forced out.

“I’m sorry…” San whispered once again, did not even reach out to try and wipe his tears, too afraid of the outcome. Wooyoung simply shook his head to the side as he sniffed, closed his eyes as he hugged the blanket over his body a bit tighter. “It’s not your fault…” He whispered, voice tired out, hoarse with sleep and tears streaming down to the pillow. “It’s not your fault…” He reminisced, more like telling himself because it wasn’t. It was-

“It’s not your fault either, Young-ah,” San whispered once again, as delicate and soft as he could be, and Wooyoung squeezed the blanket inside his palm and his quivering lip between his teeth not to cry harder.

“Not now.” He whispered into the blanket. It did not smell like San anymore. “Not now, okay?”

San waited for a second before he whispered back. “Okay.”

“Young-ah, I can’t hold this~!” San whined from his right as Wooyoung stuck his tongue out in concentration with his eyes glued to the car on the screen pathetically crashing into a wall for the nth time in ten minutes.

“And I can’t play this, we can’t have everything in life,” Wooyoung murmured dismissively, pushed -more like tortured- some more buttons on the controller and barely made it to the finish line as the scoreboard popped up to tell him he was the last. He pouted and turned to look at San pouting at the controller on the floor as he kept touching it only for his finger to go through.

“I’m not even alive though…” He murmured cutely and Wooyoung sighed with a bitter smile twisting his lips upwards. It was a Sunday afternoon after the day he finally moved in and one of the very few times that Wooyoung’s day off from the café would align with a weekend.

“Well, then, for this once, you can use your ghost shenanigans, okay?” Wooyoung raised his eyebrows and he switched the game to a multiplayer setting as San squealed in joy and broke into all giggles and tiny jumps as he waited. Wooyoung couldn’t hide his smile at the warm feeling inside his chest.

“Alright.” Wooyoung bit his bottom lip as he set the game. “Do you know how to play it?”

San shook his head from side to side with an abashed smile. Wooyoung didn’t even hide it as he smiled at his cuteness this time.

“Look.” He started pointing at the colorful buttons on the controller in front of where San was crouched down on the floor. “This makes you move; this makes you use your items and if I’m not mistaken this-”

He was about to press start just when a ding sound stopped his finger midway. A little box on the right top corner of the screen read “YOOO WHERE WERE YOU!!!” with a bunch of shocked emojis. Wooyoung looked at San with confusion all over his face.

“Who’s that?”

San blinked. “How would I know?”

“It’s your account, how do you not know?!”

“How can I know, I don’t remember!” San shrieked from where he was sitting and Wooyoung sighed as he struggled to go to the chat window.

**sanster:**

uhhhh who is this?

**destroyerchoiy95:**

wdym wHo iS tHiS bro you ghosted me for almost a year????

Wooyoung couldn’t even snort at the obnoxious nickname as it dawned upon him that, wow, that person thought that San didn’t-

“What is it?” San murmured cutely as he kept trying to press the buttons on the controller with his tongue sticking out in concentration and Wooyoung snapped out of it, blinking.

“Ah, just some-” He cleared his throat and wondered why he felt so taken aback by something so trivial. “Your gaming friend, I think.”

San raised his head to look at Wooyoung before he crawled closer to him. The comfort of the chilliness calmed Wooyoung’s nerves for a second.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing, just-” He started but jumped a little when the speakers dinged annoyingly once more.

**destroyerchoiy95:**

bro u there???

don’t u die on me again

Wooyoung took a breath so deep his head spun a little.

**sanster:**

umm i’m san’s boyfriend he’s not here

well this is awkward and maybe a bit too much…

but he died last year

“What is he saying, Young-ah?” San murmured as he wrapped his arms around Wooyoung’s neck from behind him and Wooyoung closed his eyes as the coldness almost numbed his brain, stopped the bitter thoughts from flooding in.

“They didn’t know you died.” He said simply and wanted so badly to just turn around and hug him and maybe cry it away. He realized San slightly twitched from the corner of his eye but did not move when he eased his arms around him once more. The person behind their console started typing once more after an extended awkwardness delivered on wire hung in the air.

**destroyerchoiy95:**

oh shit i didn’t know

i’m really sorry about that

**sanster:**

it’s fine you wouldn’t know

**destroyerchoiy95:**

ummm then

you down for a round?

**sanster:**

i really don’t know how to play tho

**destroyerchoiy95:**

you can’t be that bad

It turned out, excruciatingly, he _was_ actually that bad since neither of the people in the room knew how to play a game, one for obvious reasons, the other one with no excuse. When the round ended and destroyerchoiy95 person did not even have a chance to say anything other than _ngg_ , Wooyoung logged off so fast that he might’ve broken the controller, if it didn’t break during the game. It was just the feeling, he thought, the unfamiliarity and awkwardness of playing games with a random stranger that apparently knew San, and on the top of it, didn’t even know he was dead.

“Young-ah, are you done? Can we play now?” San asked as he still had his arms around Wooyoung’s neck and Wooyoung felt suffocated for a second.

“No.” He said as the huge screen of the tv went completely black. “We’re done with games today.”

San sulked for the rest of the day.

When Wooyoung returned to work the next day with the simple expectation that Yeonjun would keep asking him and bothering him about where he was for the last two days -without first asking over text for some weird reason-, it was quite the opposite. Yeonjun walked into the coffee shop like the regular he was and during his very regular hours with the little bell over the door chiming alarmingly, but all he did was send Wooyoung a rather warm but at the same time concerningly dull smile as he served him his coffee and settled in comfortably to start working. It was completely unnerving.

First of all, Yeonjun _never_ skipped speaking to Wooyoung, or anyone in general, at all before he stirred the shop around with his annoyingly, blindingly bright energy and finally sat down to start checking out his daily tasks, contrary to how he made a straight beeline from door to counter to his table.

Second of all, there was _no way_ Yeonjun wouldn’t ask where Wooyoung was for a whole two days while the occasions he has questioned where he was when Wooyoung would be at the back throwing out thrash existed with their whole chest.

Something was off. Wooyoung had to figure it out. Unquestionable.

His first attempt at getting any insight at what the heck Yeonjun’s mind was so occupied with was taking a look at his laptop screen that Yeonjun was typing something steadily ever since he came in and plopped himself on a vacant chair, as he camouflaged his peeping with sweeping the floor right behind him.

Needless to say, it failed when Yeonjun raised his head to spot Wooyoung in the café, as he often did like the creep he was, and smiled at Wooyoung almost breaking his neck in half trying to elongate it over Yeonjun’s shoulder.

His second attempt was when Yeonjun ordered his third muffin some time as the sun started to abandon its place in the sky for the day and Wooyoung jumped in front of Eunjung to serve him.

“Thank you, Wooyoung-ssi.” Yeonjun flashed him a smile that temporarily lit up his face but disappeared as soon as Wooyoung turned around to leave. Wooyoung couldn’t take it anymore.

“Okay, what is wrong with you today?” He almost snapped for literally no reason and almost felt bad about it when Yeonjun stopped his steal of a chocolate chip midway and looked at him wide eyed.

“What do you mean, Wooyoung-ssi?” Yeonjun said, obviously appalled by the sudden outrage and Wooyoung lost 75 percent of his confidence immediately.

“You seem… off today. Like you’re down or something…” He murmured as his eyes wandered everywhere but Yeonjun and he blinked like Wooyoung cracked him some world top secrets, until the puzzled look on his face was exchanged with a goosebump-inducingly smug smile.

“Oh, are you worried about me, Wooyoung-ssi?”

Wooyoung turned around to leave so quickly that Yeonjun couldn’t help the laughter that almost suppressed the exquisite white noise of the shop as he held Wooyoung’s arm gently, just enough to top his steps. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”

When Wooyoung turned around with a grumpy scowl, Yeonjun’s bright smile somehow eased his frown a little.

“Nothing’s wrong, really. I’m fine.” Yeonjun said through his smile and Wooyoung frowned a bit more when he released his arm to smile more.

“Are you sure about that?” He said skeptically, squinting at him while Yeonjun nodded with his smile still shining, unbothered. Wooyoung felt his heart involuntarily race and internally cussed at it to stop.

“Yes. Thank you for worrying.”

Wooyoung nodded, still dubious, and turned around to leave with a simple _okay, eat well then_ , but something stopped his steps past the first one.

“Yeonjun-ssi?”

“Yes?” Yeonjun said softly as he raised his head from his laptop screen to look at Wooyoung look constipated for a few seconds.

“Do you… want to have a drink after work?” Wooyoung bit his bottom lip and his eyes darted on everywhere but Yeonjun in a haste as Yeonjun looked at him with comically enlarged eyes.

“Huh?..” He gawked and Wooyoung shrugged as he puckered his lips cutely.

“It’s just that… you look like you need it, I guess.”

Yeonjun blanked out for a couple of seconds. “U-uh- Yes! Yes, that would be great!” He nodded once more a bit too enthusiastically and Wooyoung had to turn around to hide the smile clinging to the ends of his lips.

“After I clock out then. If I don’t see you, I walk out on my own.” He said as he returned to the counter with the overenthusiastic _Yes!_ of Yeonjun accompanied with giggles from the surrounding tables.

And that was exactly how they ended up around a table in a middle class pub in Itaewon and how Wooyoung literally was on the table as Yeonjun rearranged the empty soju bottles around his head, his giggling only a little bit tipsy but more like having fun with how Wooyoung was the one who got wasted even though their little get-together was to cheer Yeonjun up.

“Yeonjun-ssi-” Wooyoung started with the attempt to raise his head and stopped when he knocked two of his bottle crowns in the process.

“Call me hyung, Wooyoung-ah.” Yeonjun said as he put the bottles in their place and Wooyoung frowned with a face as red as a tomato. Yeonjun couldn’t help the fond smile creeping up his lips.

“Who told you _you_ can call me that, huh?” Wooyoung managed to slur out like Yeonjun hasn’t been calling him _Wooyoung-ah_ ever since Wooyoung started blabbering about his best friend, Yeosang, thinking he was annoying and his boyfriend, Seonghwa, straight up disrespecting him and all of that resulting in him leaving to live somewhere else he apparently can’t explain the details of.

“You did, idiot.” Yeonjun said as he poured himself another glass and Wooyoung blinked.

“Oh, I did?..”

Yeonjun nodded as he emptied his glass in one swift motion.

“Anyways!” Wooyoung yelled a bit too loud and a few heads turned towards their direction for a fraction of a second. Wooyoung’s hazy brain didn’t mind. “I told you my everything, right? Now tell me what was bothering you.”

The smile on Yeonjun’s lips disappeared for a second until it was replaced with a bittersweet one. “No, it’s just that-” He sighed as he poured himself another shot of soju. “I learned the other day that one of my friends died.”

Wooyoung stopped anything he was not doing already and blinked. “Oh.” He said as his intoxicated brain found it rather tricky to process it for a second. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

Yeonjun filled Wooyoung’s glass alongside his and smiled at him. “No, it’s really fine. I just didn’t expect something like that after he ghosted me for so long.” He raised his glass and clinked the bottom of it to Wooyoung’s as Wooyoung stared at it with the emptiest look in his hazy eyes. “Drink. It’s fine.”

It really wasn’t fine because at the end of their night Wooyoung was so wasted that Yeonjun had to drop him off at San’s door. And he almost stumbled down and told San to stop laughing at him while Yeonjun was still waiting for him to take off his shoes along his jacket. San told him to shut up real quick and he actually did despite the haze throwing a thick blanket over his logical thinking.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Wooyoung-ah? I can come in to-” Yeonjun said with worry etched into his voice and Wooyoung waved his offer away.

“NO!” Wooyoung yelled more than he should be yelling at 3 in the morning and with the front door opened to the fullest. Yeonjun looked at him, appalled. San clicked his tongue from behind him but Wooyoung ignored him.

“No, hyung, I can manage it… I think… You can just go. I’m okay.” Wooyoung blabbered like a three-year-old that just learned how to speak, with the last bits of his sense as he simultaneously tried so hard to stand up straight and mostly failed. Yeonjun did not look convinced but nodded anyways.

“Okay then. I will be leaving now. Remember to drink water, okay? Good night.”

Wooyoung couldn’t even properly spell out a good night between his giggles as he almost slammed the door shut, leaving Yeonjun to gawk at the closed door for a couple of seconds before he left with a fond smile on his face.

“Wow, he’s a lot cuter in person,” San said with a smug too familiar Wooyoung recognized it over the cloud hovering over his brain.

“Chill your gay soul…” Wooyoung murmured in his drunk annoyance mixed with giggles as his steps became more and more lackadaisical during his trip down the corridor.

“So, he’s cute, brought you home safe and sound, husband material if you ask me…” San chirped as he turned around Wooyoung stumbling and almost falling right in front of the bathroom door.

“What the fuck are you talking about?..” He slurred as he pushed the door with so much force it hit the wall.

“Nothing you haven’t thought of yet, Young-ah.” San said with the brightest eye smile and Wooyoung grumbled. “Shut- Shut up… He is just- He looked just-” He tried to get rid of his pants and failed as he sat down on the floor right on his ass, pouted. San used his ghost shenanigans to pick him up literally help him pee as he cackled silently. “You should’ve seen the way he looked! With his pouty lips and frowning eyebrows... Like- like, he is 24, he told me, but he looks like a baby, okay?.. You'd want to cheer him up too…”

San smiled and helped Wooyoung into the bedroom with a nod of his head. “He looked amused enough…”

“Oh, fuck.” Wooyoung murmured as it finally downed upon his drunk mind. “I embarrassed myself, didn’t I?.. I was supposed to cheer him up, but I complained about that bitch Seonghwa and Yeosang-ie all night… And he listened…” Wooyoung mumbled mostly to think to himself and San gently kept helping him changed out of his clothes and go into bed without a comment. “And- and then I almost talked about you too…”

“Hey now, let’s get you to bed, okay?” He gently helped Wooyoung curl into himself on his side of the bed and flew the dirty clothes into the laundry pile in the bathroom. “You probably won't remember most of it anyways…”

Wooyoung hummed as he closed his eyes and made grabby hands for San lay down with him too. He did without a question.

“You know…” Wooyoung whispered with insane amounts of sleep lingering on his voice right when San was sure he fell asleep. “If it weren't for you, him and I could’ve happened…”

“I’m dead, Young-ah…” San whispered back and raised his hand to touch Wooyoung’s bright red cheeks, feather-like, and did not feel anything as his fingers went through with a sickening feeling that he still did not understand.

“But- You know, you're still here…” Wooyoung whispered once more, words even more slurred as sleep drew him closer. “You say so yourself… Every fuckin' time like- like I could even forget that…”

San watched the way Wooyoung’s eyelids fluttered with incoming sleep and how his chest heaved up and down peacefully. “Maybe if you want it enough…” He whispered, almost inaudible and smiled when Wooyoung hummed in the place between sleep and the awake world. “Nothing, Young-ah. Just sleep already, you have work in the morning.”

And Wooyoung did. Until he woke up the next day and realized he remembered only the unimportant bits and pieces of the previous night that gifted him an awful hangover he had to live through the workday and Yeonjun teased him about how whiny and wasted he was the whole day.


	6. part two: even a fool knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My steps feel too heavy  
> To make it through the day without you.
> 
> -mixtape: on track, skz

“I still hate that.” Wooyoung grimaced.

San smiled until his eyes turned into little crescents. “Me too.”

The pillow rolled on the floor until it crashed into the side of the sofa and San couldn’t help his giggles as more memories of how Wooyoung spilled all the coffee on himself and shrieked to get everyone, including a particular Yeonjun’s full attention on himself. “I can’t believe you actually spilled coffee all over yourself.”

Wooyoung rolled his eyes as he pout-stared at the huge coffee stain on his shirt. “That’s not even the WORST part, okay?” He said, probably a bit too overdramatic, and raised his legs up to hug them. “He came with someone else today!”

“What?!” San yelled, mirroring the overdramatic behavior as he sat down on the floor, without a thump, in front of where Wooyoung was pouting on the brink of tears.

Of rage. Of course, of rage.

“Yes! They even were flirting right in front of my eyes, San-ah!” He clicked his tongue with a frown. “All men are the same I swear to god.”

San giggled, dimples and eye smile and all, as he cocked his head to the side cutely. “Was I like that too, Young-ah?”

“Of course n-” Wooyoung started, did not continue as all the words at the back of his tongue got stuck there and all that came out was air.

 _He was like that_ , he thought, but couldn’t tell him how he kept flirting with people even when Wooyoung was right beside him and gave the excuse that it was _involuntary_ afterward like Wooyoung was a stupid toddler, couldn’t tell how he treated Wooyoung like shit when he felt like it just to be petty about something Wooyoung did a couple of days ago, how he did and did and did the most twisted and selfish and inconsiderate things and during their almost two years of relationship _never even once apologized-_

He couldn’t tell.

He didn’t have to, as the heartfelt, pure smile lighting up San’s face disappeared into nothingness in the span of seconds, only to be resurrected in another.

“I don’t think they were flirting, though, Young-ah.”

Wooyoung gulped slowly, wondered in the back of his head how much of it San actually saw in his, cleared his throat with a diversion of his eyes and a frown. “How would you know? Were you there?”

San only smiled. Wooyoung’s eyes widened.

“Were you there?” He repeated, flabbergasted in a second and only kept giggling as he got up to run around the room.

“Oh my god, were you there??” Wooyoung yelled over San’s giggles but San did not stop as he ran out of the living room into the kitchen, yelling “Young-ah, I’m hungry!”

“How can you be hungry, this annoying bastard, come here!” Wooyoung ran after him and actually found San sitting on the table, munching on chips he left opened there two days ago with his pie chart hair a mess from running-

He blinked. “Aren’t those stale?..” He said as he exchanged his gaze from the tube of chips and San’s satisfied munching. San shrugged as he stuffed his ghost mouth with another fistful of old chips. “I wouldn’t know.”

The next day when Wooyoung walked into the café for his afternoon shift, Yeonjun was already sitting there, in his normal attire that still made a picture of the way he was all black with multiple piercings flash before his eyes, with his ordered chocolate muffin and black coffee because apparently he was very adamant on dying of excessive use of caffeine before the age of 30. Like Wooyoung cared. Maybe the date yesterday would have cared enough for both of them.

He was alone that day though. And remained alone throughout the time Wooyoung kept ignoring his waves and smiles at the direction Wooyoung was picking up the trays and cleaning the tables. Wooyoung didn’t really try to avoid him on purpose but felt more like he was maybe scared of learning the truth. He didn’t like it. Didn’t think Yeonjun would care about how he gave him the cold shoulder, either, because why would he care about someone like Wooyoung when he could have people like _that_ woman out there.

Needless to say, he didn’t think when he turned around with a bunch of dirty trays stacked up in his arms that Yeonjun’s broad chest would be the first thing he saw. A squeak left his throat as the trays shifted dangerously until Yeonjun held them to prevent any scene from happening.

“Wha-” Wooyoung almost yelled out but stopped when Yeonjun smiled at him behind the mountain of trays and whisper yelled instead when he realized a couple of heads turning towards them. “What are you doing?”

“‘What am I doing?’” Yeonjun blinked as he easily transferred the trays into his own arms and started walking towards the kitchen with the steps determined with months of being a regular. “What are _you_ doing, Wooyoung-ah? I waited for you the whole day.” He turned his head around to flash a smug smile at him and Wooyoung watched with eyes wide as saucers and filled with outrage as he followed right behind him.

“Give me the trays, that’s my job!” Wooyoung reached out to hold Yeonjun’s arm to stop him but he wiggled out of his hold to laugh right at his face.

“I’ve been here longer than you, though.”

“Why does it even matter, you are a customer!” Wooyoung whisper yelled once more as Yeonjun dropped the trays on a vacant table to turn to look at him with a sigh and a knowing look.

“Am I mere _customer_?” He said with a hand on his waist and Wooyoung couldn’t say anything but divert his gaze and frown.

“What else are you?..” He mumbled and it almost got lost in the white noise, he himself unsure. Yeonjun frowned with another sigh.

“What happened, Wooyoung-ah? Something’s bothering you?”

Wooyoung tried to shake it off and go clean the trays and take orders at the counter like he probably was supposed to at the moment, but something in him couldn’t just hold it in.

“Did you have fun yesterday?..” He mumbled as his frown got even deeper and his hands mindlessly started playing with his green apron.

“Huh?..” Yeonjun blinked, appalled with his eyes wide as if Wooyoung started to tell him he was an alien or that he was seeing his dead boyfriend, yes. That would most likely get the same reaction.

“Did you have fun with your date, hyung? It’s not so hard to understand.” He snapped and turned around to pick the trays up in the sudden embarrassment of getting the words out but couldn’t when Yeonjun wrapped a hand around his arm gently.

“Wooyoung-ah…”

“What, hyung?” Wooyoung turned around to pour his frustration into an overdone eye roll, but the almost excited smile on Yeonjun’s face was enough to baffle him not to.

“What do you mean _my date_?”

“Your date, yesterday. With that gorgeous woman with long brown hair.” A bell chiming sound mixed in with the white noise of the shop and his apron wrinkled inside his fists as the memory of the beautiful woman and Yeonjun giggling at each other as Yeonjun showed him something supposedly hilarious on his laptop screen. “And it’s fine, really. It’s not like I can stop you from seeing someone else but at least don’t do it in front of my-”

“Wooyoung-ah, Wooyoung-ah.” Yeonjun interrupted with a smile on his face that Wooyoung could not decipher for the time being. “It wasn’t a date.”

Wooyoung stopped to look up at his eyes as they overflowed with an unreasonable amount of joy. He was tall. Almost a couple inches more than San was. It almost felt reassuring. “What?..”

“It wasn’t a date.” Yeonjun reverbed. “She was a colleague. We’re working on the same project.”

The bell chimed once more, alerting the oblivious people drinking their overly sweetened coffee and tasty desserts and Wooyoung felt like something heavy on his chest disappeared with a deceiving relief behind it.

“But, you two were-”

“It wasn’t, Wooyoung-ah.” Yeonjun insisted, as his hand on Wooyoung’s arm gently slid down on it to intertwine their fingers, not very determined and slightly shy as he searched Wooyoung’s eyes that enlarged noticeably. “I promise.”

Wooyoung didn’t know what to do as all the blood in his system rushed up to his face along with his neck to make him feel like everything else kept flowing around him and no one realized he was _on fire_.

“Oh-” He managed to mumble as he lowered his still wide in shock eyes down to his hand perfectly fitting into the other’s large one. “Oh…” He said once more when his heart started beating so hard, he got scared Yeonjun would be able to hear it.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I-” Yeonjun started with a panicked tint to his voice as his hand over Wooyoung loosened enough to let go and for some reason Wooyoung’s perturbed brain squeezed it even more. A warmth linked with the slightly appalled smile spreading on Yeonjun’s face traveled through his hand to his chest slowly.

A warmth that did not go away when they both scattered towards their supposed positions of one on his table, in front of his laptop that pathetically waited for him and the other behind the counter taking orders with an adorable blush on his face that lingered and only got darker when later Yeonjun asked him if he was free after work and Wooyoung nodded his head _yes_. That did not go away when they walked under the starry sky to particularly nowhere as their hands brushed each other and when Wooyoung realized he was unconsciously seeking out the feeling.

That only doubled, maybe tripled when the events of the night led them to find each other only inches apart in the empty streets, their breaths washing one another’s faces until their lips connected shyly, wind blowing their hair and moon shining upon them as they chased the feeling with their eyes closed.

A warmth that fluttered butterflies in his stomach when he realized not a single car passing by bothered him that night.

The feeling Wooyoung was not sure of. That he didn’t want to be sure of.

Their next kisses, though, were not so innocent.

Wooyoung was not exactly sure how they ended up in the personnel-only bathroom, Yeonjun flushed against his body, his black hair that was not neatly combed that day an even messier mess and Wooyoung’s apron half undone for no reason as a whine threatened to spill out of his lips when Yeonjun licked into his mouth, taking the opportunity without a doubt and sighing when he felt Wooyoung’s hand sliding down his chest over the print on his black shirt just to stop below his navel.

Wooyoung didn’t hate the feeling. What he hated was the familiar, too familiar cold chill he felt going down his spine whenever they would be _too close_ , how he would stop to look around and proceed to see nothing every single time.

“Hyung…” He whispered, meaningless, as he put his hand on Yeonjun’s nape to start peppering kisses down to his neck, reveling in the slight high of literally making out in a bathroom on duty as Yeonjun bit his lip a bit too hard. “Young-ah…”

There it was. The chill making him feel like he was in the middle of a flower field, the flowers yet to bloom under the sun that was still too shy to come out and warm the cold of the night and he was just standing there with nothing but a sheer dress on.

He decided to ignore it as he felt Yeonjun’s hand go down to his leg just to go back up his waist and tried to get lost in the feeling of feeling Yeonjun’s pulse under his lips, Yeonjun’s breath warming his clothed shoulder and just him, him, him-

They both jumped into each other so hard Wooyoung almost broke one of his teeth when a particularly hard knock on the door alerted both of them. “Wooyoung-ah!”

Wooyoung looked into Yeonjun’s eyes fondly smiling at him with eyes wide as saucers and let him steal one last kiss as Eunjung knocked on the door once more, did not mind the lip ring that clinked on his teeth _at all_. “Come out, someone’s looking for you!”

“Coming!” He yelled back with a pathetic attempt at fixing both of their clothes and tried to get rid of the blush on his face making him high-headed as Yeonjun straightened the stray strands of Wooyoung’s black hair gently before putting a chaste kiss on his forehead. He smiled back when tried to return the favor but failed miserably and Yeonjun swatted his hand away with a silent giggle.

When they finally walked out of the one-person bathroom, Eunjung’s hand was up and ready to knock on the door once more. Yeonjun wrapped his arm around Wooyoung’s waist and Wooyoung tried to wriggle out of his hold but gave up when Yeonjun tickled him.

“Was it good? Did you give hand jobs? Wash your hands if you did, Wooyoung-ah.” Eunjung said with an unbelievably straight face and a pining gaze and Yeonjun choked.

“Noona, shh, shh!” Wooyoung whisper-yelled in outrage and wriggled out of Yeonjun’s strong hold sneakily as he still couldn’t stop coughing. Eunjung rolled her eyes with a smile.

“Who is it, noona?”

Eunjung shrugged. “I don’t know. He said he’s your friend.”

And it _was_ his friend as Yeonjun finally stopped choking and they could go to the front to see Yeosang sitting at a previously vacant table playing with a cup of overly sweetened latte that Wooyoung knew his friend drank nothing else but.

“Where are they?” Yeonjun asked looking around for the friend of interest as Wooyoung made a mostly stuttering beeline throughout the shop, trying his best to ignore the heaviness crushing his chest as Yeosang raised his head to smile at him when they both walked close enough.

“Ah, Wooyoung-ah. I’ve been waiting.” Yeosang said when he gulped down the coffee bulging his cheeks. Yeonjun crushed into Wooyoung as his search around the shop was not yet done and Wooyoung ignored him, looked at Yeosang as he blinked between the two in slight confusion.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” He asked and almost coiled in when Yeosang’s smile turned into a slight scowl as his eyes were fixed on Yeonjun.

“You were ignoring me, so I had to come here to have your attention.” Yeosang twirled the still filled to the brim cup in his hand just to have something to do with it when he realized Wooyoung’s lips were red and swollen, outfit slightly disheveled and his scowl deepened even more judgmentally. Yeonjun cleared his throat in an attempt to have the attention on himself for a second.

“Then I will be over he-” He started with a step towards his black-screened laptop pathetically waiting for him but turned over his heels when Wooyoung grabbed his arm immediately. “No. You’re staying.” Yeonjun opened his mouth to protest that it was obviously somewhat private, and it was okay, he could leave, but Wooyoung’s scowl and tight hold on his arm told him not to. At all.

“Who is the guy, by the way?” Yeosang almost did not even try to hide the irritation in his voice, as he realized the hickey threatening to stain the pure skin of the nameless guy, the piercings that split and how his black clothes stuck to it at places. Yeonjun opened his mouth once more but Wooyoung beat him to it.

“This is Yeonjun-hyung. Not _the guy_ , Yeosang-ie. How is Seonghwa, by the way, still going strong?”

Yeosang looked between them as Yeonjun smiled at him apologetically and closed his eyes for a second with a sigh, not to see the poorly adjusted belt. “He is fine—we’re _fine_. I came by because I was thinking that maybe we could go out for dinner, after your shift.”

Wooyoung stopped breathing for a second, felt the familiar rush of chilliness up his spine but did not dare break the eye contact as Yeosang looked right into his eyes with those bossy look Wooyoung hated most of the time. His hand around Yeonjun’s arm tightened a bit more and Yeonjun looked up to check on him with a confused pout.

“I can’t today. We have a thing with Yeonjun-hyung.” He lied easily. Yeonjun blinked at him. “We do?..”, to which Wooyoung slightly pushed him off balance so he could shut up. He did. “Yes. Yes, we do.”

Yeosang did not like what he was seeing one bit.

“But it’s been so long, Wooyoung-ah. I thought we could-”

“Wooyoung-ah! Counter!” Eunjung yelled over the suddenly magnified noise of impatient customers lining at the counter and Wooyoung watched one of them yell to speak to the manager overdramatically.

“Sorry, Yeosang-ie. Maybe later.” He said in a hurry before running off to the counter, actually thanking the chaos inwardly for helping him out as he took the orders, watched Yeonjun go to his own table to actually start working and saw Yeosang get up to leave and toss the still full cup of coffee into the trashcan on his way out. He felt the familiar chilliness once more and raised his head to look around but saw nothing, like always.

“Are you sure you’re not hungry? I’m going to whine about eating for the next several hours.” Yeonjun giggled as Wooyoung pulled him from his collar towards the door of his -San’s- apartment and giggled a bit more into Wooyoung’s mouth when he kissed him against the wall to shut him up.

“You giggle like a three-year-old, hyung. I’m embarrassed to call you hyung sometimes.” Wooyoung teased and Yeonjun bit his lip with an adorable scowl.

“I’m 24, you bastard.” He retorted with a pinch to Wooyoung’s ass and Wooyoung jumped into him as he looked around in haste to see if anyone just saw them flirting like literal high-school students.

“Yeonjun-ah.” Wooyoung teased with a warning mock to his voice and they had to kiss for about five more minutes bathing in the rush of the possibility of getting caught before they could actually step inside after Wooyoung struggled to balance fiddling with the keys and Yeonjun’s neck kisses.

“It’s somehow cold in here…” Yeonjun said when they finally stopped trying to bite each other’s lips off in the hallway and progressed into the living room as Wooyoung dragged him once more after he attempted to pull his lip ring off, this time intertwining their fingers.

“Is it?..” Wooyoung looked around with a pout as Yeonjun stroked the back of his hand mindlessly with his thumb. “I think it’s the same, though…” Wooyoung murmured as San waved at him from the bigger sofa with his black sweater paws and the cutest eye smile.

Of course, he was there. Of course, because no matter what Wooyoung could not get over him and of course no matter how hard he tried, this was just stupid.

The slight pressure of Yeonjun’s hand on his made him feel sick in a second.

“You’ll catch a cold, Wooyoung-ah, it’s cold he-” Yeonjun started his almost nagging with a pout but stopped mid-step when he saw a young boy with curly pink hair sitting perched up on the sofa, his clothes old and battered-looking, his eyes doe-like as he looked at something and nothing at the same time.

“Oh, hello- Wooyoung didn’t tell me someone was home,” Yeonjun said tugging at Wooyoung’s hand and Wooyoung shied it away as he saw San’s smile drop. Soobin’s eyes widened in pure shock.

“What?..” He murmured and turned towards Yeonjun, appalled because _what the fuck_ , and Yeonjun's smile froze for a second at Wooyoung’s dismay.

“Soobin’s here, Young-ah, he can see him…” San whispered with the smallest voice, scared, and Wooyoung gulped down the bump blocking his throat.

“Ye-yes, this is Soobin.” Wooyoung stuttered, his voice shaking. “He’s a friend of mine.” He cleared his throat as he lied easily, ignoring the shaking of his hands. “He was staying for a couple of days, I forgot to tell you he would be here, sorry.”

“Hi, I’m Yeonjun.” Yeonjun said with a nod of his head, his smile back and shining but Soobin did not look flattered.

“Young-ah, I think something’s wrong.” San whispered once more as he crawled closer to nowhere as Wooyoung saw. Soobin flinched away slightly, lowered his head, doe eyes hidden under his pink bangs.

“Hi.” Soobin whispered, voice high and airy, shaky. “Nice to meet you, Yeonjun-ssi.”

“He’s saying nice to meet you.” San quickly warned Wooyoung, Wooyoung gulped once more as Yeonjun smiled wide.

“Nice to meet you, too. I love your hair.” Yeonjun chirped and Soobin started _shaking_.

“Young-ah, he needs to go.” San said in a haste started holding supposedly Soobin, but _he just couldn’t see a shit_ -

“Thank you.” Soobin whispered back but his voice got impossibly deeper. “Thank you, Yeonjun-ssi. I know.”

San held onto Soobin even tighter when he started growling, only audible enough for San to hear. “Wooyoung, he needs to go right now.”

“Someone else told me my hair was nice, too.” Soobin said, like a riddle with his voice raspy and unknown. “A long time ago.”

Wooyoung did not have to hear to know something was terribly wrong as he saw the stupefied smile on Yeonjun’s face.

“Tell him he needs to leave.” San said sounding so determined Wooyoung did not wait a second.

“Ah, you- you weren’t supposed to be slacking, Soobin-ah, I thought you needed to run some errands?”

He looked at San who nodded frantically before whispering Soobin to stand up. He did.

“That’s- that’s why I didn’t mention him, I thought he’d be gone by now.” Yeonjun blinked as San walked Soobin to the front door. Soobin started shaking even more the closer they got to Yeonjun.

“Oh, is that so?.. Next time then, Soobin-ssi.” Yeonjun murmured as he watched Soobin walk labored steps towards the door, slightly frowned when all Soobin whispered was a broken sentence including a repeated _next time, next time_ like a broken record, but did not dwell on it as Soobin opened the front door upon San’s order, no ghost shenanigans, then closed it after him.

Wooyoung took a breath so deep when San gave him a thumbs up, leaning on the now-closed door, that Wooyoung felt his head spin a little.

“Your friend was…” Yeonjun muttered after him, gaze still lingering on the door that San was standing right next to. Wooyoung felt even more sick in the stomach. “…kind of weird. Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude.”

Wooyoung shook his head to the side. “No, no.” San walked back into the living room and plopped himself down on where he was sitting previously, his smile confident in himself, pure. “He’s like that sometimes. Don’t mind it.” Nausea trickled back into his stomach and he felt wherever Yeonjun formerly touched prickle painfully.

Yeonjun smiled back. “Oh, really? I thought he might’ve not been fond of me or something. Was it that I complimented his hair? Does he not like it?” Yeonjun cocked his head to the side in his own thought and assumptions. “Was it a perm gone wrong or something? I shouldn’t have-”

“Yeonjun, just-” Wooyoung snapped when it was just _too much_ before Yeonjun could even catch up on the malicious tone to his voice but stopped when Yeonjun’s phone started ringing even more annoyingly. He excused himself with a small smile and took the call.

“Ah, yes?”

“Yeonjun-ah.” Wooyoung heard. That woman’s voice, the woman from when Yeonjun and her came to the café and Wooyoung caught a bit of their nonsense bickering and then giggling afterwards when he was cleaning the tables, but it was right inside the room.

“Yes, noona?” Yeonjun answered, and Wooyoung heard it again. Right in front of him. Right out of San’s mouth.

“I couldn’t find the documents you were supposed to send me earlier, can you send them again?” San said, legs wrapped up and arms around them as he rested his chin on his knees. “Also, I hated the third background design, are you slacking?”

“What? Noona you told me you wanted modern strips squeezed in for the background, what do you mean you hate it?” Yeonjun said with an adorable put to his lips and Wooyoung almost felt bad about deceiving him.

“You put too much, god, just fix it till midnight,” San said last, bossy, before Yeonjun ended the call with an obedient and pouty _yes, noona_ , turned around towards Wooyoung with the same pout still present to his lips, endearing but a little bit too much for Wooyoung at the time.

“I’m sorry, Wooyoung-ah, something came up about work, I have to go.” He said apologetically as he pocketed his phone and fixed his jacket and the strand of hair that fell over his eyes. Wooyoung nodded immediately. “Oh, it’s completely fine. Just go.”

“Raincheck, though?” Yeonjun asked with a smile, Wooyoung nodded with a dry as hell _sure_ before closing the door, just shy of actually slamming, and did not even let him steal a goodbye kiss.

San was still sitting in the same exact position when he walked back with a strained sigh, eyelids heavy almost as if he actually _needed_ to sleep.

“Why did you do that?” Wooyoung asked with a heavy sigh that he was not sure if it was out of only relief, San smiled at him, soft. “You needed it.”

Wooyoung hugged his legs when he propped them up and rested his head on his knees, just like San was, looked at his eyes looking at his own, sighed once more in comfort when he realized all the weight dragging his chest towards the ground was gone like the wind. “Thank you.” He whispered. San smiled a bit more.

“Was it about… his death?..” Wooyoung whispered as if he was scared of disturbing the peace surrounding San and San shook his head only enough that Wooyoung would understand the answer was yes. “I think so. I’m not sure about it, I should go and check.”

“Do you think Yeonjun is in danger?” He asked with such worry etched onto his voice that he himself was appalled by it for a second.

San raised his head from his knees and looked straight ahead, eyes unfocused. “I don’t know, Young-ah. I’ll be back in a second.” Wooyoung opened his mouth to protest immediately but the next second, San disappeared into thin air.

Wooyoung crawled into himself in the corner with a troubled sigh and waited, waited and when San was back quick enough, he just had to fish his phone out of his pocket and text Yeonjun to see if he was eaten alive by a wrathful ghost. After about ten messages sent in a breath, no answer was texted back, it wasn’t even read, and Wooyoung felt his heart drop to his stomach painfully.

It couldn’t be that Soobin just went out and did something horrible, right? San wouldn’t let that happen.

Bu then again San did say Soobin was over a hundred years old and he was definitely stronger than him. Wooyoung only wished the level of strength was not in a way that he could snap someone’s head in half without moving a finger.

Wooyoung unlocked his phone with a new sense of dread as the product of his overactive imagination and his fingers hovered over the first letter of what would look like a frantically worried message if he could type it before he saw Yeonjun’s response saying he was stuck in an awful traffic and he would rather be cuddling right now.

He was okay. His head wasn’t across a hundred meters where his body was. He wasn’t swimming in his own pool of blood.

Of course.

Wooyoung took a deep breath and San was right there, sitting where he was sitting before he disappeared minutes Wooyoung did not count ago.

“He’s fine.” San said, his tiredness still prominent as ever and Wooyoung still did not understand why and did not dare disturb the serenity surrounding him. “He was overwhelmed so he didn’t talk to me much, but he told me Yeonjun is related to the people who caused his death.”

Wooyoung felt his words leave him for a moment. “Is hyung going to be okay?..” He whispered as his voice trembled at the end. San did not answer as his half lifeless half twinkling eyes travelled up and down Wooyoung’s face. “You really care about that man.”

Wooyoung frowned. “What are you talking about?”

San giggled slightly at the snappish tone. “You care about that man too much to admit it.”

Wooyoung sighed a breath so deep he felt all the air pressure his lungs from inside. “You don’t remember how you died.” He said, purposefully choosing to ignore the last bit as it came out like a question.

San smiled at him for a second longer before he whispered again. “Of course. Soobin’s not here for the same reason as me.” He said, dropping the topic as quickly as Wooyoung wanted him to do so. “He’s here to revenge his death. I’m here for you.”

Then Wooyoung thought, if he cared so much about Yeonjun that even San knew about it so clearly, more than he himself realized up until now, why did he still feel the butterflies scratch the walls of his stomach painfully as San looked at him with that twinkle in his eyes? Why was he so close but so impossibly far away and it ate him inside to know that he would reach out and all it felt would be air several degrees lower than average surround his pathetic hand?

What would Yeonjun think if he knew Wooyoung craved someone else so much?

They both didn’t say a thing for the next couple of minutes that Wooyoung wished and wished and wished endlessly that the pair of eyes gazing into his own with an odd sleep lingering behind them would actually be there, right next to him, wished that he could just reach out and touch the purest skin he has ever seen in his life and feel it under his fingertips-

Because Choi San was beautiful.

Wooyoung was lucky to even be able to lay his eyes on him during his lifetime and his death obviously didn’t change that.

He felt a weird pang of guilt prickle his stomach and tried to soothe it down as he hugged his legs a bit tighter.

“How do you know he won’t chase him down?” Wooyoung murmured, too scared to disturb the serene silence engulfed in the comfortable chilliness of the ethereal being that was San, expected an outburst from the universe for interrupting the closure of San’s looming eyes, but all San gave him was a reassuring smile.

“He’s gone, I know it.” San whispered, his voice in harmony with the silence after the chaos the walls just witnessed. “Soobin is old enough to know what he’s supposed to do.”

He nodded, gulped down the bump in his throat as he reminisced his memory in his head.

“I don’t know enough yet. It hasn’t been long enough for me.” San whispered again, so soft his words floated in the air but Wooyoung had no problem hearing anything he said. “But all I know is what Soobin taught me.”

Wooyoung couldn’t find anything to say for a few seconds.

“Does it hurt, San-ah?” He murmured, afraid to hear the answer but not able to resist the urge to know. He elaborated, mostly for himself. “Staying here. Does it hurt?”

“The only thing that hurts is your vivid imagination about Yeonjun, Young-ah.” San mocked with a tired but cunning smile and Wooyoung threw a pillow at him. It didn’t go through.

Wooyoung jumped up in shock and disbelief at the way San’s face scrunched up before he dramatically fell into the cushions. “San-ah?..” He said, his voice etched in utter worry, blinked when San giggled a little as he laid between the countless softness of cushions. “Stop feeling so worried, I was joking.”

Wooyoung threw every single pillow at him as all of them went through while San kept giggling adorably, eye smile and all, until Wooyoung got tired, asked him to lay down with him and he said yes, like he always did.

What never happened before was that, that day San actually slept.


	7. part two: heart on your sleeve, like you've never been loved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heart on your sleeve like you've never been loved  
> Running in circles, now look what you've done  
> Give you my word as you take it and run  
> Wish you'd let me stay I'm ready now
> 
> -friends, chase atlantic

Wooyoung hugged the blanket around his body over Yeonjun’s lap, Yeonjun’s strong arms around where his waist was synched in, chin over Wooyoung’s shoulder and eyes half lidded at the boring movie currently going through the third quarter in the background as Wooyoung placed a chaste kiss on Yeonjun’s exposed neck. Yeonjun wasn’t in his usual suit but a pair of pajamas, which was a rare occasion unless Wooyoung begged for it, even though they never had a day without each other the past three weeks.

It was great, magical even, the time that they had spent together, every second of it, and Wooyoung was suspicious at how things were going too well, too smooth to be true. Yeonjun came to the shop every day, like he normally already was doing, but he didn’t bury his head into his laptop all day anymore, instead helped Wooyoung around as an excuse to be as close to him as possible and buried his tongue down Wooyoung’s throat occasionally in case of any availability.

What was even greater was their time off work, when cheesy dates and late-night outs took place along with a balanced mixture of shy and bold touches of their hands, heartfelt giggles and stolen stares followed by pretty words that fluttered Wooyoung’s heart every time embarrassingly.

Yeonjun was the clingiest person Wooyoung had ever seen and acted like a child no matter the situation, loved the smell of coffee but didn’t mind the taste so much and was probably addicted to sweet treats as he ordered something sweet every time they went out to eat, he was the softest goofball with goth tendencies even though he looked like a responsible 24 years old with a decent paying job and a rather well-conditioned life and Wooyoung felt absolutely delighted to learn and witness all of it.

It felt surreal how good everything was.

It was Wooyoung’s day off and Yeonjun left work early enough for both of them to decide to watch a movie at Yeonjun’s place and still have enough sleep for both of their next workday. It was pouring outside, with flashes of lightnings and all, and Yeonjun’s house was nice and warm and luxurious just enough that Wooyoung felt the warmness inside.

But the warmness was covered in a thin sheet of ice that day.

It wasn’t like something was obviously wrong, they hadn’t even argued about anything other than how to open a ketchup bottle or which of them cooked better even though none of the arguers knew how to, but Wooyoung felt something about Yeonjun was slightly off the whole day, ever since he drove to pick him up and opened the door for him in the most cheesy way possible just to be an obnoxious ass and make Wooyoung red as a tomato as he plopped onto the front seat.

It was too good to be true anyways.

“Hyung, are you okay?” Wooyoung whispered, calming just below his ear and could see how Yeonjun had to actually strain himself not to jump at the sudden air brushing against his skin.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Yeonjun said with an almost forced smile like he had been doing so ever since Wooyoung saw him scowling at his phone as he leaned his hip over the bonnet of his car in his suit. It wasn’t like him, it wasn’t the confident, annoying idiot who kept swarming over Wooyoung, to Wooyoung’s interest, and he hated the sudden change with a passion.

He nodded with an affirmative hum, did not push further as he asked him about the project that Yeonjun said he would be working on this week, got a dry ass _it’s okay_ in response with diverting eyes with the excuse of watching the bad movie and finally snapped.

“What’s up with you today, hyung?” He said, snappier than he initially intended but Yeonjun only pressed his lips together into another smile as he kissed the crown of his head for comfort. “Nothing, Wooyoung-ah. It’s nothing.”

“Are you sure?” He whispered with a tiny scowl as the kiss forcefully softened everything inside him immediately, which was an effect Yeonjun lately started having on him and he didn’t want to admit being fond of. Yeonjun hummed and stroked where his fingers landed on his waist, eyes unreadable as they remained on the screen. Wooyoung sighed slowly and deeply, tried to drown warning signal in his head with the sloppy kisses he put over Yeonjun’s sweet spot he discovered a couple of days ago, with the way Yeonjun’s black hair was soft, airy between his fingers, with the way Yeonjun’s warmth radiated off of his body and got trapped between the blankets and Wooyoung.

“Hyung.” Wooyoung whispered once more, shifted in Yeonjun’s lap enough to put both of his legs beside Yeonjun’s thighs, let the blanket slide off one of his shoulders and the movie play idly in the background. “Kiss me.”

Yeonjun looked at him with the same eyes but kissed him anyways.

Their lips moved in unison, soft and soothing, Wooyoung’s hand cupped Yeonjun’s cheek and his stubble grazed his palm reassuringly. Yeonjun was reassuring, like an anchor to the real-life he was forced to live but it wasn’t a painful reminder. It was a reminder that felt like Wooyoung was in the middle of a field full of daffodils that bloomed under the warm sun that threatened to blind him, but they swayed under the harsh wind too. Their petals floated in the air until they dropped on the soil to wait until they rotted, but they looked beautiful as they did so. Wooyoung liked it. He did not know what shape or way made him like it, but he liked it.

But, for now, the wind was chilly.

“Wooyoung-ah.” Yeonjun whispered as he put both of his hands over Wooyoung’s cheeks, pulled back slightly, tried to regain his composure, lips glistening and red, swollen with the aftermath of the short-lived make-out session. It was beautiful. Wooyoung loved the thrill that knowing he could easily make someone so vulnerable gave him. “Wait.”

Wooyoung tried to trace the warmth of those lips with a protesting groan because he had to forget, the dread that locked every logical thought into a useless, traumatized knot in his brain threatened to come back every second he did not have his anchor close enough and he hated every possibility of it. Yeonjun did not let him, though.

“Wooyoung-ah, wait a second.” This time hands on his shoulder pushed slightly, still gentle but firm enough that Wooyoung stopped, blinked.

“What’s wrong today, hyung, seriously? Did you not want me to come? Did you have something else to do?” Wooyoung asked, his eyebrows pinched together into a half scowl half pout and he could see Yeonjun had to physically push himself to gently pry Wooyoung’s thighs away from on top of his own.

“I think we’re going too fast.” Yeonjun said after he looked like he was genuinely constipated for a few moments that Wooyoung sat on his legs and waited with a scowl on his face that only deepened when he finally opened his mouth.

“What do you mean? We didn’t even do-”

“I know what happened, Wooyoung-ah.” Yeonjun said and he looked resentful, Wooyoung could not decide for exactly what right then though.

Yeonjun was pretty daffodils and clear skies but the wind was too chilly and the storm was inching in.

“What do you mean?..” Wooyoung whispered, his hands on his thighs feeling like they were numb, his ears slowly starting to feel like he was underwater.

“I know that your previous boyfriend died in a car crash,” Yeonjun said as cautiously as his voice let him but it only led the dread in Wooyoung’s mind to tangle up into a bundle, the numbness spread all over his body. Yeonjun uncomfortably gazed at the movie still idly playing in the background just to have a second of escape.

“How do you know that?..” Wooyoung whispered, petrified with the terrifying feeling that constricted his chest. No, he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to be hearing any of it from Yeonjun’s mouth, slipping out of the pretty lips that he just kissed swollen, he didn’t want to see the sympathy in his eyes.

“I talked to your friend. He reached out to me because he was worried and he-”

“Stop.” Wooyoung growled lowly, his hands fisted in his sides and gaze on the simple covering of the grey cushions. Of course, he knew exactly _who_ that friend was and what he told Yeonjun, but he asked anyway. “What did he tell you?”

Yeonjun’s brows came together to form a restless scowl as he slid slightly closer to Wooyoung for comfort. Wooyoung ran away almost ten feet. “Wooyoung-ah, calm down a bit, it’s fine-”

“What did he tell you?” Wooyoung repeated, this time venom clinging to his words as they slipped through his scowl. Yeonjun sighed heavily when he realized there wasn’t any making it lightly.

“Did he tell you I was mental? That I was unstable?” Wooyoung pushed on when Yeonjun did not dare say anything for a couple of seconds. “Are you scared now that you know everything, huh?”

Yeonjun looked at him with eyes widened in disbelief and shock. “Wooyoung, you know I would never-”

“Yes, he died right in front of me and I had to watch from the front seat, then what?” He said louder than he initially intended, his eyes protesting at the way he opened them in outrage. “Yes, I am mental, okay? I get panic attacks, I flinch every time a car passes by, I almost killed myself, are you scared now?”

“Wooyoung, you know this is not about-” Yeonjun started as he got slightly closer to Wooyoung, Wooyoung tried to go as far as possible and his body went rigid for a second when his back collided with the armrest. Yeonjun sighed at the terrified look on his incredibly pale face, stopped trying to get any closer. “I am trying to be considerate, please just listen for a sec-”

“Stop looking at me like that!” Wooyoung yelled to the point his voice cracked, his chest heaved almost painfully, and his head started to spin from hyperventilating. _Not now_ , he told the folds of his overly busy brain that felt like it was on fire, _not now, please_. He didn’t want to break down in front of him just yet. Not like that when Yeonjun looked at him with such pity in his eyes that it made Wooyoung sick in the stomach.

“I’m already trying to live with myself, why are you stepping up and rubbing it on my face?” He yelled as he jumped up from his seat to flail his arms around in frustration, his face a weird mix of pale and red, with beads of sweat ready to drip down his forehead. “Just who do you think you are??”

Yeonjun finally couldn’t contain his own calmness and snapped. “Because I don’t want to be just some rebound, okay?” He said as he stood up to level with Wooyoung. “I’m trying to make things okay for us, so neither of us will get hurt. I want to make this right, Wooyoung.”

And Wooyoung knew Yeonjun was not just some pretty words and pretty petals and he most likely actually meant it when he said he wanted to make it right, but he also knew very well that he himself would never let him have anything good in his life, because the universe hated him with a passion.

Because he himself hated who he was with a passion.

“Stop it!” He yelled, as much as his lungs allowed him. “Stop acting like you know everything, stop acting like you care about me, just stop, okay?!” His own ears felt like they would explode as he stomped away from him to collect his bag and jacket on his way to the front door. Yeonjun’s hurried footsteps followed behind.

“Wooyoung-ah, wait a second.” Yeonjun almost begged as Wooyoung managed to throw his jacket on, put his feet in his shoes in a haste, despised the way his heart yearned to go back when he turned around to hiss at Yeonjun as he looked like he would do anything to make him stay. “Don’t you come after me.”

And then he slammed the door behind him. As Yeonjun could only watch him leave because it was what Wooyoung deserved, of course. What he deserved was the disappointment Yeonjun felt and the pitying eyes Yeonjun gave him and this feeling of drowning, the feeling of worthlessness, hatred, abomination and atrocity that his whole being was.

Yeonjun was the beautiful flower petals and the warm sun rays and the soil under his feet but as Wooyoung stepped out of the building and into the pouring rain, his tears mixing with the sky’s, the wind was chilly and the storm had already come in.

Yeonjun did not come to the coffee shop after that.

It wasn’t like Wooyoung expected him to come, really. He was hopeful that he would, stupidly maybe, but he also knew wasn’t in any position to expect anything from Yeonjun, let alone be with him. Still, he felt the terrible stinging somewhere in his chest when he looked around the lively shop and did not see him about to lose it over his game backgrounds over his laptop and hated it.

It was a given though. Because he didn’t deserve anything good in his life, obviously, and Yeonjun was good, too good for his broken pieces that were scattered all over and even with the strongest adhesive, he was hopeless. Yeonjun didn’t deserve to be tainted with his pitch black. Not when he was the pure whites and warm butterflies, no.

The night club, on the other hand, was full of people like him.

With people of all ages grinding on each other, each one of them with a glass or a bottle of beer in their hands, singing and dancing under the blinding lights as each and every one of them tainted their blacks onto the body next to them, there was no way of getting out pure white once you went in.

Wooyoung liked it. He liked it ever since he was too young to drink and was not allowed in.

“Hyung, how long has it been?” Jongho smiled his biggest smile when they met up in front of a newly opened and fairly popular club that was quite fancy for both of them, but they decided it was a day of self-care.

“What’s up, Jongho-yah.” Wooyoung hugged him with a smile of his own before they started exchanging what they have been up to these past months they never talked other than occasional texts that checked up on if they were still alive or not and snickered about how Mingi dumped them at the last minute for his girlfriend when Wooyoung knew it was just her being petty and not letting him go out with Wooyoung because she simply hated him, for no solid reason whatsoever.

Jongho had been accepted to the football team he had been trying so hard to get into last year and was even ranking very high up in it, as he told him over the blasting music, with a proud smile on his face when they were dipping their fourth shots. He also managed to get an internship for his business degree at a pretty relevant company even though he was just a second year. Wooyoung had a bitter taste in his mouth as he told him he froze his registration and was working at a coffee shop for a while now.

“You lost a lot of weight though, hyung.” Jongho said when they just downed their seventh shots along with a bottle of beer. Wooyoung realized the edges of his sight slightly blur as he exchanged gazes with some guy that kept staring at him with a smile on his drunk face. “You look pretty.”

“Pretty?” Wooyoung turned to look at him once more, with a glint in his eye that Jongho kind of recognized even now. “Do you still think I’m pretty?”

Jongho smiled at the way his hyung slurred the words and combed his black hair with his fingers when his long bangs fell into the front and blocked his vision. “Yes. Longer hair suits you.”

Wooyoung smiled at him as he took several sips from his beer that almost got too warm to drink. Of course Jongho would think he was pretty. Even when he was not a sad widow who was seeing his dead boyfriend everywhere, Jongho always waited for him, patiently watched him as he sucked San’s face off even though Wooyoung was completely aware of Jongho’s feelings, he was just a petty human being and liked to have him and his attention around. Wooyoung loved having anyone’s attention around, no matter in what shape or form. He was selfish like that and his drunk state did not help.

After they had a couple more shots and Wooyoung just _could not_ stand still and had to join the drunk crowd swinging around aimlessly, mostly off beat and sloppy with main purpose being to feel friction, they left their respectively safer table to go swing around.

It was just some incomplete dance moves in the cropped space they could find amidst other drunk bodies, now totally undrinkable beer in the bottle they both were holding in their hands, but then it was one sided eye fucking as they were pushed together with every passing second.

“Jongho-yah.” Wooyoung yelled over the music as colorful lights illuminated Jongho’s skin with blues, pinks and purples.

“Yes, hyung?” Jongho yelled back, trying to shove the person behind him so he had enough space to breath.

“Should we go to your house after this?”

Jongho stopped to look at him for a second and smiled as he bottomed up before he yelled back. “My boyfriend is home right now but of course you can stay over, hyung.”

 _Ah_ , Wooyoung thought, _of course_. Why would someone like Jongho wait for someone so tainted like him for that long? Jongho was only grey. No one would want pitch black when they were only grey.

“Is he pretty?” He yelled after he downed every last drop of his beer and tossed the empty bottle onto some table close to where they were.

Jongho smiled under the lights just when they turned a beautiful lilac and Wooyoung thought he had never seen him smile etch with such sincerity. “So pretty, hyung. You should see him.”

Wooyoung smiled a broken smile back and did not hesitate to find the guy that kept staring at him all night in under five minutes.

The guy was in his thirties, Young-something, with a stubble that prickled his soft skin as they kissed on their way to the toilets so Wooyoung could shove the guy into one the stalls to give him a sloppy blowjob, and Wooyoung hated every second of it but did not say no when the guy invited him over to his house for obviously more.

He hadn’t done it in so long, even before he met San he had long stopped sleeping around when his mental health, along with Yeosang, got in the way, but that night he just _needed it_ with every fiber in his body that ached with intoxication. He hadn’t had sex in ages and it wasn’t good in any ways, not enough preparation and too little lube so it hurt like a bitch the other day, plus the guy either did not know what he was doing or was too high up his mind to logically think, but it did manage to fill the void in his chest for a couple of hours until Wooyoung sneaked out in the morning.

“Young-ah.” San murmured as soon as he stepped foot into the living room that was oddly silent. Sleep lingered over his voice cutely as he perched on top of the couch, his head resting over his knees with his eyes half opened, slightly unfocused. Wooyoung felt his eyes blur with tears immediately at the slightest sight.

“Why are you here, you should go play cards.” He hummed, faced away from him so he wouldn’t see the silent tears streaming down his face like he actually could.

“You didn’t let me.” San said simply, softly, with so much familiarity in his voice that Wooyoung felt like he couldn’t breathe for a second.

“Is Soobin here?” He asked as he threw his jacket and phone along with his keys to the side, tried his best to ignore his lungs tightening with every breath he took and every tear that dropped.

He could see San shaking his head from side to side slowly. “No. He’s been acting weird ever since Yeonjun could see him.”

Wooyoung only nodded because he felt like if he tried to say another word his voice would shamelessly betray him. He didn’t even know if he was crying because he was relieved he could finally see San and hear his voice after a long night full of sin, because he was full of guilt and shame, or because the void came back, crushing his heart and stepping on it mercilessly and he couldn’t do anything about it.

He decided it was all of them.

“Young-ah.” San whispered once more, soft like always and inviting, reassuring, so much so that Wooyoung could not hold back the hiccups anymore.

“San-ah…” He whined out as his legs couldn’t hold him upright and he had to crouch down and wince in the process, combed his fingers through his hair disheveled and greasy with the night’s sweat and other unspoken liquids and pulled at the roots and just cried. Cried with hiccups straining his breath that he tried so hard to catch but failed, cried as his lungs and his head protested, ached, pulsed but he couldn’t stop as he felt San’s whisper right at his ear, his chilliness soothing as it surrounded him. “It’s okay, Young-ah. You needed it. It’s okay.”

And he knew it was not okay and that he was letting down his boyfriend even after he was literally dead, and he knew like the back of his hand that Yeonjun would spit on his face if he knew what he was doing and Yeosang might even yell at him if he learned he was returning to his past habits.

“No.” San said firmly. Wooyoung could see his arms around his shaking torso from where his tears did not block his vision but could not feel it. “It’s okay. Don’t think like that.”

He drew a shaky sigh into his burning lungs, carefully turned around to face San as he sat on the floor across him with the most reassuring eye smile on his face and felt new tears stream down his face as San wrapped his arms that Wooyoung could not physically feel but appreciated so much.

“It hurts, San-ah.” He whispered and meant his heart along with his ass and did not even need to specify it. “I know, baby.” San whispered back and Wooyoung couldn’t even find the strength in his aching body to scowl at the pet name, so he let it slide.

The next time he bagged someone at the club it was a guy in his late twenties, relatively good looking with his bleached head of hair and strong brows and even let him have some of his expensive bourbon when they went to his fancy apartment as he gave him a sloppy hand job. The sex was fine, nothing San ever made him feel like but even though he was still sore from the fiasco only four days ago it didn’t hurt much. In the morning he left before the guy opened his eyes between his silk sheets and did not even remember his name properly on his way to the coffee shop.

The other time he found someone they had a heated drunk conflict about who would top and he lost, topped for the third time ever in his life and hated every bit of it. Not the topping part, but the fact that he was topping out of a stupid loss and that the guy was actually somehow cute.

The fourth time was kind of a complicated night. The guy was okay looking and was bulky and all and they danced for a bit together under the neon lights and even kissed a bit, other than the smell of cigarettes lingering on his breath it felt okay.

What was weird was that the guy offered him some pills when they walked out of the club to make out at the empty alley behind the club, told him it was some molly and that he was only offering because he has been a good boy. What was even weirder was that Wooyoung accepted the pills, popped one of them immediately with the remaining half of the beer in his bottle he still held onto very dearly and kept kissing the guy, with no space between their bodies and hands all over each other.

Wooyoung was not particularly familiar with drugs, but it wasn’t a concept he was super unfamiliar either. There were times he and Yeosang were young and curious and they smoked some weed and gave each other sloppy hand jobs which didn’t go anywhere more than that because both of them fell asleep with their dicks out and had to wake up to hide the rest of the weed before one of their parents came home and found out.

But about an hour later and the sex he had in the same alley with little to no lube was never like anything he had ever felt in his life. The lights inside the club mixed and mashed together to create even more vibrant and beautiful ones and he could almost feel the bass in his entire body even though it came through the closed doors and brick walls and he had a dick inside him.

The void in his chest felt like it was gone for another couple of hours as the guy’s low growls resonated dangerously with his high pitched moans all throughout the back alley and Wooyoung felt like he could breathe without feeling like he was underwater for the short period he let the world carelessly pass by.


	8. part two: trapped, in the phobia of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m stuck with a phobia  
> I want to stay together with you  
> I’m stuck with a phobia  
> I can’t go there, the place where you’re at  
> I can’t get closer  
> -phobia, skz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw// sexual assault  
> be mindful

“Wooyoung-ah!” Eunjung roared outright against Wooyoung’s ear and Wooyoung jumped up so high the broom he was snoozing on top of almost stabbed him in the eye on his way back.

“Y-yes, noona?” He murmured, voice thick with sleep and exhaustion, dark circles under his eyes darker than eggplant and eyebags bigger than the bag of a middle-aged wealthy woman.

“You were sleeping again, what is wrong with you lately, seriously?” Eunjung snapped as she looked like she was second away from snapping her own broom on top of his head, but with candidness. Wooyoung couldn’t find any words to respond with because all he did was sleep whenever found the chance at work lately. For obvious reasons.

“Is this about the Yeonjun guy?” She asked after a weighty sigh, waited for an answer as Wooyoung lowered his gaze on the floor that he was supposed to sweep twenty minutes ago. “He stopped coming too, is this about him?”

“Noona, just-”

“No, Wooyoung-ah, you need to get a hold of yourself, are you aware of how bad you look right now?” Eunjung scolded with a hand on her waist and Wooyoung felt so small under her pinning gaze, felt his eyes burn with unshed tears and probably dryness but only kept his head low. “If you keep this up, I will not be able to cover for you, not that I mind but boss does, you know.”

“Yes, noona.”

Eunjung sighed as she watched the way Wooyoung played with his apron nervously. “You’ve been slacking even when the guy was around, and I did hear about boss picking at it, so I suggest you don’t push it so much.”

Wooyoung nodded once more, obedient. “Yes, noona.”

He resigned the day after.

It wasn’t like he could make anyone believe he was going to be better or his work performance would improve or anything, so there was no point in wasting anyone’s time and effort, of course. Especially not his precious noona’s. He didn’t even deserve Eunjung anyways, like he didn’t deserve anything. And she didn’t need the farewell of someone so low as him, so he went to talk to his boss when her shift did not start yet and walked out before she could come to the shop to question him and maybe make him change his mind by nagging some sense into him. He knew she would.

So he did what he knew was the way: went home, all dolled up as San watched him from the side silently with the smile on his face that he never dropped and called him pretty when he was done and Wooyoung for a while wanted him to just make him stop, maybe hug him or hold him or hell, even slam him towards the wall and tell him not to go, tell him he was there and he didn’t need anyone else, not Yeonjun, not some prick at the club that he would fuck and never see again, only him.

But he was not his San. Only his San would be able to do that.

Wooyoung hid the last of his pills in his inner pocket and did not even try to suppress the guilt clawing at his chest as the smile on San’s face dropped while he walked out.

He tended to do things he did not want to do lately was what Wooyoung had realized about himself. He neither needed, nor wanted anyone other than San, _his_ San that he watched die, but nonetheless he went and found Yeonjun and broke his own heart beyond repair once more, while it was totally avoidable. It was completely his fault too, anything that ever happened to him was a product of his own stupidity and he still went and let himself take a liking to the guy, just to be heartbroken and miserable like this again.

He didn’t want any of the guys he met and tainted a part of their souls with his own pitch black and got tainted in return with dark and purple hickeys all over his body, he didn’t want to wake up in someone else’s bed every other day and have to sneak out like he had just committed a crime unbeknownst to anyone and didn’t want to cover up his hickeys with cheap concealer before he went out in public every time.

But he did it anyways. Because the void he felt was too large to live with otherwise.

That night, though, as predatory men, varying ages but disgusting look of lust all the same, cornered him into relatively less crowded side of the club he chose to go that night and let their saliva drip down their sick and twisted smiles.

Normally he would push past them, you see, even if it caused him a black eye and aching muscles for the next week, but the thing was that he popped not one but two pills that night, drank a ton more than what he normally did with various people he was drinking buddies with only for the night, and he was quiet struggling to stand upright, if he was honest.

“Come on, get your pretty ass up and come with us already.” The relatively younger one of the three men poked him with the blunt end of his bottle and Wooyoung stumbled into the wall behind him.

“Yeah, look at you all dolled up, we should put that pretty mouth of yours to work.” said the ugliest one as he snickered, loud enough to be heard even with the ridiculously loud music.

“I will have to decline, guys.” Wooyoung slurred his words out so much it was barely a coherent sentence. “You know, my ass would not take a foursome while it is still sore from couple days ago, sorry.” He giggled because it sounded even funnier to his drunk _and_ high brain when he yelled it over the noise.

“Oh, don’t be shy, I know you can take all of us so well, just come on.” The one with the tattoos held his arm to most likely drag him out but Wooyoung yanked it out of his hands with a scowl.

“Let me go, what the fuck…” He murmured but lost his balance in the process, tripped over literal nothing in fell onto his knees with a silent groan. He heard the guys laugh, an ugly and ill-intended cackle, along with murmurs “Look at the bitch high as fuck.” and “He can’t even stand upright and thinks he can say no.” before a hand wrapped over his arm to pull him back over his legs.

“Would you like some more hickeys on that pretty neck of yours?” One of the guys that he was not even able to properly recognize before he buried his nose into his neck and started sucking a hickey on the sensitive skin as he growled lustfully and did not budge when Wooyoung tried to push him away with his even weakened arms.

“No...” he tried to say, “Let me go, I don’t want hickeys…”, but his head was spinning so much and the colorful lights mixed in together in front of his eyes to create a muddled mess and his limbs felt like mush as his head was forced to stay put towards the wall and he actually thought that maybe he deserved it, he deserved to just be in this situation and not have any way out as three disgusting men obliterated him and his body, as one prepared to suck a second hickey as the other ones pinned his arms to the wall and the people around him either gave no fucks or they too were too high to even realize, he thought this too was the product of his incurable stupidity.

But it wasn’t.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” A voice so familiar it literally hurt something in Wooyoung’s chest snapped over the blasting music. “I believe he said no.”

“Why did we even come here? I told you I hate loud music.” Hongjoong pouted cutely as he bottomed up the remaining of his beer and Yunho stole a kiss when he lowered his bottle, with the cutest smile on his face Hongjoong almost couldn’t find it in himself to keep being bitchy about the head pounding, an embarrassing disgrace of music.

“Uh-uh, little man. You will not find your way out of bringing me here of all places with your cute puppy face.” He pushed Yunho’s giggling face away gently and knew immediately he did not believe a word of what he just said.

“Come on, hyung.” Yunho whined as he wrapped his arms around Hongjoong’s tiny waist and buried his nose into the roots of his bleached hair. “We talked about this. We can come to the loud music place once a month, right?”

“Loud music place…” Hongjoong teased but found himself wrapping his arms around Yunho’s neck anyways, with the fondest of smiles because his boyfriend was the cutest, bestest in the world.

“Also you’re the tiny one, why am I the little man?” Yunho questioned as he gradually tightened his arms around Hongjoong’s torso and Hongjoong had to pat his arms to let him go with a grimace and a “Shut up and drink.”

“Yunho-yah.” Hongjoong said when he was finally freed away from Yunho’s death grip and Yunho took another one of the shots just to scrunch up his nose as he felt it burn down his throat. “Yeah, hyung?”

“I think something is wrong there.” Hongjoong pointed at a strange crowd of three people in a corner laughing at something with a frown on his face and Yunho shrugged. “Probably some drunk people, let it be.”

“I mean yes but why are they-” He started but stopped when he saw one of the guys pull someone else up from the floor just to pin them against the wall, laugh a bit more and bury his nose in their neck in the most disgusting ways, scowled in the overall disgust of the act, but then-

“Wooyoung.” He said, absolutely appalled, and Yunho felt all of his blood go ice-cold in his vessels.

“Hyung, why all of a sudden-”

“No, Yunho, look, it’s Wooyoung.” Hongjoong said in a haste as he coerced Yunho to turn around to look at the way Wooyoung writhed against the men’s hands, gradually gave up as he couldn’t get away and just stood there with a grimace on his face.

“We should do something.” Hongjoong said with determination dripping down his vowels as he started stomping through the crowd but Yunho held his arm, stopped him immediately.

“Hyung.” He said in a rather warning tone.

Hongjoong squinted his eyes at him. “What?”

Yunho rolled his eyes with a burdened sigh and Hongjoong’s scowl got even deeper. “What, Yunho? Will you watch him get raped just because of some beef you had almost a year ago?” He easily released his arm from Yunho’s loose hold. “Then stay here and watch because I won’t.”

“Hyung!” Yunho yelled after him as Hongjoong easily slid through the drunk bodies dancing sloppily and grinding enthusiastically and sighed the biggest sigh he ever did as he collected all of their belonging and ran after him.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Hongjoong snapped as he patted the one closest to him on the shoulder when he arrived on the scene and saw Wooyoung squeezing his eyes shut with his whole body shaking under foreign hands. “I believe he said no.”

All three of the men turned towards him in a second, heads weirdly synchronized, gazes as annoyed as it gets like he was interrupting something so dear and it was the most disrespectful thing ever.

“Who the fuck are you?” snapped the guy that was sucking on Wooyoung’s neck a second ago and Hongjoong totally ignored him as Wooyoung opened his eyes, recognized him after a couple of stares with unfocused eyes and gasped overexcitedly.

“Hyung!” He squealed cutely and tried to jump over Hongjoong to hug the living hell out of him but could not because the men still held him strongly against the wall, so it backfired and he hit his head against it. Hongjoong blinked as he watched it unfold and wanted to snap the head of the guy that cursed at him for moving in half.

“Get lost, dimwit.” One of the guys that was holding Wooyoung’s right arm growled and Hongjoong frowned.

“What the fuck is a dimwit? Are you 50 or something?”

“Hyung, these guys won’t let me go!” Wooyoung whined as he slurred, cutely despite the situation. “I told them I didn’t want a foursome because I don’t have three holes, hyung, they don’t understand!”

“You were the one that flirted the whole night, you bitch.” The guy that held his left arms snapped and Wooyoung tried to kick him but missed and kicked the air instead. Hongjoong sighed with his hands on his waist and a gradually deepening scowl. “I will request you let go of the guy because he obviously does not want any of this right no-”

“Hyung! I said wait, please!” Yunho whined as he wriggled out of the mindless crowd and joined them, his arms full of both of their belongings. “God, please, I almost drowned in there.” Hongjoong rolled his eyes. Another overdramatic gasp was heard even with the music still blasting out the speakers. “Yunho!! These guys won’t let me go, I don’t have three holes, plea-”

“Shut up, you dumb bastard.” The guy that was being of no use other than holding Wooyoung’s left arm and sipping his cheap beer the whole time punched Wooyoung in the stomach as he was kicking around once more and Wooyoung doubled into himself with a pained groan as Hongjoong gasped in horror.

“Now wait a second.” He protested and dug his fingers into the men’s arms in an attempt to make them release Wooyoung. “I really don’t think we should be-” He tried to resist the other arms pushing him away along with Wooyoung’s coughing and dry wrenching and did not even see the fist coming into contact with his jaw in the process.

When he stumbled back in pain holding his aching jaw with a frown of his eyebrows and a “What the fuck?”, he didn’t see Yunho literally jumping on the guy who he supposed was the owner of the fist and attempting to rearrange his face on the floor as he yelled “How fucking dare you, you fucking bastard?” with the other guys trying to pry him off the guy, Hongjoong took the opportunity and caught Wooyoung right when he was about to tumble down the floor when the other guys left to save their friend.

Needless to say, all of them were kicked out and banned from that particular club for life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why am i so late lol  
> anyways stan skz


	9. part two: the story starts where the story falls apart with you

“Shh, shh, it’s fine, Wooyoung-ah, I’m here.” Hongjoong reassured the man currently wrenching his guts out on the parking lot behind the club after he practically _begged_ Hongjoong not to leave him during his drug-induced panic attack, which obstructed their attempts to call a taxi.

“I seriously can’t believe this is happening…” Yunho grumbled a few feet away from them but close enough that he had no time to lose if anything wrongfully touched Hongjoong once again.

They had been kicked out about half an hour ago, Yunho with now all three of their belongings, Hongjoong with Wooyoung on his side clinging on him for dear life because the guards yelled at all six of them and he started having a panic attack almost immediately. They walked towards Yunho’s car but was forced to stop when Wooyoung interrupted his begging for Hongjoong’s hand holding him to retch on the side of the road. Yunho was not thrilled.

“Yunho, sweetie, can you come here and help me carry him to the car?” Hongjoong requested with the softest voice of his when Wooyoung dropped his whole weight onto him. “He kind of passed out, I can’t do it on my own.”

Yunho dropped everything he had in his arms beside them and picked Wooyoung up bridal style, despite himself, as Wooyoung grumbled nonsense into his chest with a hand holding onto his coat for his dear life. Hongjoong hid his smile as he picked up their stuff on the ground.

The ride was silent for most of it. Yunho drove because he didn’t want to deal with Wooyoung if he decided to go alive again and other than the occasional grunts as he laid his head on Hongjoong’s lap at the backseat, it was the car engine humming on the unspoken agreement to take Wooyoung to their house.

Hongjoong was the one that dressed up Wooyoung in pajamas he sacrificed after Yunho carried him to their apartment, and he was the one that cleaned his face and neck as Wooyoung was awake enough to ask him what happened and drunk giggle at the response of them being banned for life.

“Make sure he won’t choke on his own bile before sleeping, okay?” Hongjoong whispered only and inch away from Yunho’s lips with his arms over his broad shoulder. Yunho sighed as he scowled at the way Hongjoong’s chin started getting darker in color, gently brushed his long fingers over the forming bruise. “We should’ve put some ice on it sooner. Does it hurt so bad?”

Hongjoong smiled at the way his voice was more air and feathers. “Nah. It’s barely there.”

“You know I can tell when you’re lying, hyung. Please don’t ever do something like that again-”

“What do you mean, I would do it again.” Hongjoong quipped as he interrupted Yunho’s sigh. He took an even deeper one in response.

“Yeah, I know, but just… You need to be more careful, those guys seemed like bad news already and you tried to talk to them, like… You should’ve waited for me.”

Hongjoong unraveled his arms from over Yunho’s shoulders with a light scowl and a small sigh. Nothing too intense, he would never be able to actually get mad at Yunho’s puppy eyes anyways.

“What, so you can beat the shit out of them before even saying anything? I’m not the biggest fan of your anger, you know.”

“No, of course I wouldn’t just go and punch the assholes, but I could’ve handled it without you getting hurt,” Yunho said with a pout to his small, cute lips. “I hate seeing you get hurt.”

A fond smile stretched Hongjoong’s own as he rewrapped his arms around Yunho’s neck. “Oh, now you’re being cute and I really appreciate it, but I’m serious. We need to work on your anger.” Yunho pouted and Hongjoong tried to kiss it off his lips. “We talked about this, love, so before we do that that I will go take a shower and you will go watch him. Okay?”

The pout of Yunho’s mouth turned to a scowl as he stole a gaze towards Wooyoung wrapped in fluffy blankets on his request, dozing off safe and sound on their sofa in the living room. “Hyung…” He whispered in a silent protest but did not further express his opposition when Hongjoong scowled cutely in response.

“Yunho, please.” He whispered and put a chaste kiss over Yunho’s, feet risen to level himself with Yunho’s ridiculously long height. “I know it’s hard, but the Yunho I love wouldn’t turn his back on someone so miserable.”

Yunho only looked at him for a couple of seconds but looked into his eyes and saw everything he loved in them, how Hongjoong always spoke sense into him and how he would be there for him no matter what. He sighed in defeat.

“Sure, Hongjoong-hyung.” He whispered back as he returned the kiss, but it lingered for a couple seconds more this time. “I love you.”

Hongjoong smiled against his cute nose before he put a small kiss on the tip. “I love you, my honey bear.”

Yunho couldn’t face the reality of being alone with the Wooyoung until he heard the shower running and only then willed his feet to where Wooyoung was laying down, gaze blank as he looked at the empty floor. He sighed as he purposefully plopped himself near his feet would be if they weren’t folded upwards under the blankets, to be somewhat closer so he could actually witness if Wooyoung choked.

“Yunho-yah.” Wooyoung whispered immediately, his voice low with sickness and sleep, soft.

“Hm?” Yunho hummed absentmindedly, pulled out his phone to kill the time he had to spend with a high drunk on twitter.

“I can’t feel Sanie.” Wooyoung whispered again, hesitant and broken, Yunho rolled his eyes.

“He’s dead, Wooyoung.”

“I know, dumbass.” Wooyoung grumbled and Yunho had to will every fiber in himself not to just leave him there and oppose Hongjoong.

“It’s not chilly. It hasn’t been chilly the whole night.” Wooyoung murmured, more to himself in his half asleep and still very much drunk state, Yunho sighed. “Why would it be chilly, air con is on.”

“No, he’s not here, why don’t you understand?!” Wooyoung kicked him in sudden outrage and Yunho slapped his feet over the blankets.

“What do you mean he’s not here?” Yunho asked when both of them stopped fighting like children and settled in their respective spots again. Wooyoung hugged the blankets and sniffled. “What if he’s waiting for me at home again, Yunho-yah. I should go home.”

Yunho stopped when he realized the sadness and seriousness in his voice and put his phone on the coffee table, turned towards him, because _what if_. “Explain chilliness, Wooyoung.”

Wooyoung did not say anything for a couple of seconds and Yunho feared he actually fell asleep. “It gets chilly when he’s here…” He whispered. “Chilly but comfortable…”

Yunho had to digest it for a moment, tried to feel if it was chilly at all but was met with the soothing warmness of the apartment. “Is he here?”

“I said no!” Wooyoung said in drunk outrage and pouted afterwards, unshed tears ready to spill out. “Why do you even care?..”

“Nothing, just nothing.” He waved his hands in front of his face in defense and did not say anything further as the sound of the running water was stopped.

When Wooyoung opened his eyes the next day to the sun poking at them very crudely, he felt _awful_.

First of all, the pounding of his head was so bad that even though he was so sure he opened his eyes all he saw for a couple of seconds was white flashes blocking his vision. Second of all, he was in need of twenty glasses of water to unstick his dry as fuck tongue from the roof of his mouth.

Third of all, he had no fucking idea whose couch he was withering on at that exact moment.

So he did the only sensible thing at the exact situation, flinched from literally nothing and piled all of the fluffy blankets over his body while leaning his back on the armrest as he forced his brain to function and fill in the gaps he had in last night’s lacking memory in the anxiety haze of waking up at an unknown house.

“Yunho-yah, can you find the milk bottle?” The familiar voice interrupted his brain working in overdrive with every little sound and he jumped, clutched the blankets in his palms and realized there was a Yunho in the scene, got confused and then that it was Hongjoong’s voice, got dumbfounded.

How the fuck he ended up with the people that he had not even breathed in the same space for almost a whole year, he had no clue.

He first checked if he had all of his clothes were still on under the fluffy blankets, realized he was wearing some baby blue pajamas and got even more confused, then looked around to see his black mesh top and skinny jeans sitting on another couch in an organized pile. They must’ve helped him changed and he wondered if any of his clothes had any puke on them.

“Hyung, he’s awake.” He heard the exact voice he remembered to be Yunho’s say slightly louder and closer to him so it felt like his brain was hammered to a mush inside his skull. He turned his head towards where the voice came from just fast enough that his pulsing head did not just snap and saw Hongjoong hurry into the living room.

“Oh, Wooyoung, are you feeling better?” He scurried closer to the couch once he saw how Wooyoung looked at him like a lost puppy in pain, actually got down on his knees near where he was perched up wrapped in blankets and held his hand, tight and reassuring. Wooyoung could only blink as he gaped like a golden fish.

“Hongjoong-hyung.” He said, baffled at the way Hongjoong held his hand without any hesitation and how he looked at him like he was made of glass, something fragile, essential, important. Not like he was pathetic and pitiful, but like he was actually worried about Wooyoung.

He didn’t deserve it, but he couldn’t find it in himself to pull his hand away.

And then Hongjoong told him about how they ran into him at the club last night and Wooyoung listened to him with a frown on his face that he was not sure if it was from his terrible hangover or from the way Yunho kept giving him glances as he brought a glass of water for Wooyoung on Hongjoong’s demand.

“I was fine.” Wooyoung insisted when Hongjoong just stopped telling him three men with ill intentions tried to prey on him. “I’m used to stuff like that, it’s fine.”

“It was bad, Wooyoung.” Hongjoong said softly as he stroked the back of his hand with his thumb gently. “That’s sexual assault, it was not okay.”

“It _was_ okay, hyung.” Wooyoung emphasized every word as he finally found the strength to pull his hand back. “I didn’t need your help.”

Hongjoong sighed slowly, not like he was irritated but more like he was trying to find another way to comfort Wooyoung, but when Yunho sighed, impatience and displeasure dripped off of it.

“Yes, we should’ve let you be and then if you got lucky you would be found unconscious near some dumpster.” He snapped, voice laced in impatience and irritancy and Wooyoung scowled so hard he felt his heartbeat at the backs of his eyes. “Like you give a shit.” He snapped back, looked Yunho dead in the eyes to tell him things he didn’t want to say, but Hongjoong was quick enough to break their angry stare off before the whole house caught fire.

“Okay, okay, you both need to chill out. This is not the time for your feud to come alive, come on.”

“Hyung, just-” Yunho started, whiny but still with a scowl on, Hongjoong shut him up in a second. “Yunho, we talked about this.”

The room was silent for the next couple of seconds before Yunho sighed once again, turned on his heels to walk straight towards the door. “I’m gonna go buy some breakfast.”

They both merely waited until he disappeared behind the closed door that at the end of the hall. An awkward silence swallowed both of them for a couple moments before Hongjoong broke it with a sigh. “I’m sorry about him.” He murmured with a dissatisfied pout at the direction Yunho walked away. “He’s just being a dick because he’s surprised to see you.”

“You don’t have to make excuses, hyung. I know he doesn’t like me.” Wooyoung said, playing with the fluff of the blankets, a fake smile masking the way he wanted to just break down, not because of Yunho and his dickheadedness but because it was just too much, and he just needed _him_ to be here, but he couldn’t even feel the chilliness anymore. He felt his vision blur with unshed tears and tried to hide them with his longer bangs. “I didn’t need help, it was fine, really.”

“Wooyoung-ah.” Hongjoong let a small smile twist the corners of his lips upwards but it too was reassuring like anything else he did. Wooyoung did not know when he became someone like that. “You were in such a bad situation, and I'm sorry if we stepped your boundaries, I really am, but we had to do something about it.”

Wooyoung nodded silently and whispered as he rested his head over his folded knees. “Thank you, hyung. I’m sorry I’m being a bitch about it.”

“Nah- It’s okay.” Hongjoong waved a dismissive hand at him with the blinding smile of his. “You’re hangover and all, it’s fine.”

And then they sat in silence for a while, not knowing what to say or do as the awkwardness resonated throughout the walls of the lovely house but then Hongjoong got up, disappeared somewhere around the house that Wooyoung assumed as kitchen, courtesy of the two cups full of tea when he returned, explained how he was trying to drink less coffee because Yunho forbid him to drink more than two cups a week, insisting it was very bad for his health how he lived on coffee most of the time. Wooyoung would’ve preferred coffee as the hangover still got him wasted but still accepted the mug with a half-smile.

Then it was silence again, but this time the silence was not awkward like the last one and it was easily broken when Hongjoong complimented his probably disheveled and greasy and gross long black hair which made Wooyoung partly smile as they slid into the comfortable small talk of literally anything until Hongjoong finally asked what he’s been dying to ask the whole time. “So, what were you up to this past year?” It was a little too enthusiastic for what he would be hearing later on, but his eagerness to learn did accomplish a small smile out of Wooyoung.

Hesitation lingered in Wooyoung’s mind at first and he only managed to tell him that he dropped out, which was something Hongjoong was already familiar with, thanks to mutuals, but he didn’t comment on it, and then told him that he had to stay at a facility for a while but was mostly okay now, even though that was probably a total lie, and Hongjoong didn’t really comment on it either, instead talked about how he was barely passing this semester, but it would be okay because there was always time for improving and healing and other poetic, meaningful stuff Wooyoung listened to with a simple nod.

Then he told him about the coffee shop, on the question that if there was anything else going on in his life, as the sound of the front door opening and Yunho walking in with a several bags that crinkled as he walked surrounded them and Wooyoung stopped for a moment that he waited Yunho to disappear again. When Hongjoong nodded at him with a smile telling him it was all fine, he continued with how he liked working there so much and about Eunjung and how she made everything even better for the short time he didn’t fuck anything up, and then lost the job alone with it all.

And then he told him about the guy he met because of the coffee shop when Hongjoong asked him with an annoying ass winky face if he had anyone in right now, and really did not have any intentions to tell anything but that, just to not be reminded of his failures once again.

But something in him pressed him to tell him all about it, maybe because he simply needed another head to help him or maybe just because Hongjoong made it so easy, he proceeded to murmur how he came every single day and ordered a large coffee with a muffin and was so annoying doing just that and sitting at the same spot all day, but at the same time was the cutest idiot as he had his mental breakdowns over a small detail in the background he was working on or when he tried to make Wooyoung like him back and succeeded maybe just a little bit in the end but then Wooyoung had to fuck it up, just like he kept fucking up everything that came in his way, including his own life.

Hongjoong looked like the most understanding person he had ever met and thought wouldn’t actually exist as he listened to every word Wooyoung uttered timidly with appropriate reactions that Wooyoung just wanted to keep telling him every detail but stopped because he didn’t want to bore him with them.

“Yunho and I, we acted selfish, Wooyoung-ah.” Hongjoong started when Wooyoung was just done telling him about how much of a wreck his life was. “I will not speak on behalf of Yunho, of course, but I was trying to be there for him as he hurt so much that I did not stop to think about you, even though I knew you would be hurting just as much, maybe even more.”

Wooyoung gulped slowly at the flash of all of it, but forced a smile anyways. “It’s okay, hyung, you had your own reasons.”

Then they didn’t push any further as all three of them had to quickly get dressed because Hongjoong totally forgot he had a lecture on art history in half an hour and Hongjoong somehow persuaded Wooyoung that they would be dropping him home as they stuffed their mouths with the toast and orange juice Yunho bought earlier. The car ride was lively with Hongjoong’s chatter about literally anything, like how the weather was so nice today and how it was such a waste he had to go to school and how he didn’t like the toast Yunho bought so they should make it at home next time, but when he was the first one to be dropped off, the last thing the four sides of the car heard was Hongjoong’s lips smacking over Yunho’s cheek in a playful, wet kiss and Yunho giggling after a mock groan.

It was awkward as Wooyoung stood at the passenger’s seat and forced himself to look outside no matter what and focus on the silent whirring of the engine, maybe watch the people pass by him in blurred silhouettes and listened to the relaxed breathing of Yunho as he drove.

Wooyoung tried, really tried not to make a big deal out of what Yunho told him back then, when he first screamed them at him in front of the whole school or when it played in Wooyoung’s mind like a frustrating broken record ever since, but they hurt. They hurt so much that Wooyoung was quite surprised to witness how much damage words could make.

But it wasn’t like anything that had become shambles right before his eyes was Yunho’s fault or anything. It was him. Everything was because of his stupidity and lack of control over anything in his life and probably because even before San was forever gone, the only thing that kept him on his feet was him and him only so it was only natural that everything would collapse without the main column.

So, no matter how much he tried to, Wooyoung could not hate Yunho for acting the way he did and blaming him for the way things turned out-

 _No_ , he thought as evergreen trees and traffic signs passed him by, maybe he was only a little bit mad about Yunho ever thinking Wooyoung would try to hurt his Sanie on purpose.

“So, you still live here?” Yunho asked with the tone Wooyoung despised as the car slowed down to a stop in front of San’s apartment. It wasn’t helping the fact that it was the tone Yunho used towards him when he thought Wooyoung was not worthy enough, smart enough, or basically insinuating that he was not good enough for anything while he himself had that vibe like he both deserved everything in the world and was too smart for his own good. It was suffocating.

“Well… it’s rent free.” He said as he unbuckled his belt and could almost sense the eye roll without even glancing at him. “I should get going then.” His hand was already on the door handle. “Thanks for the ride.” He murmured with the drive to get out of that car as soon as possible.

“No problem-” Yunho muttered in a way that told Wooyoung he had more to say, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear. “You know, that chill of yours…” Yunho started and Wooyoung could not decipher what he was saying for a second. “I feel it too, some- sometimes.”

Wooyoung felt all of his blood freeze inside his veins and it wasn’t even like that pleasant kind of chill.

“What- what do you mean…” He dared to ask, almost inaudible, and then again Yunho looked like he knew all of the secrets of life from past till future.

“You were mumbling about it last night, before you passed out. I didn’t-”

“I don’t remember anything like that.” Wooyoung was harsh as he finally stepped out. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Goodbye.”

“Wooyoung-” Yunho started but Wooyoung did not listen further as he almost slammed the car door, didn’t even look back while he practically ran towards the building. He didn’t even know that San could go around other places independently -except his little ghost club, obviously-, but he never even once mentioned Yunho during the time they had spent together either. Wooyoung wasn’t even sure if San remembered Yunho, because he himself never really thought about him until last night.

He sucked in a trembling breath as he heard the car engine start once again and waited until it was far enough to mix in with the city’s own noise to search for the keys inside his pockets. There was no way someone other than him, let alone the Yunho was telling him he could feel San, a literal ghost.

He made a silent pact with himself to never drink again as he unlocked the door and stepped inside to definitely interrogate San about Yunho and maybe finally feel the comfortable chill on his skin that he was lacking since yesterday.

But it wasn’t chilly.

What made his hair stand on end as he let the door shut closed behind him and took a couple of steps into the hallway was not the familiar, comfortable chill, but was the sound of someone crying, sobbing as it echoed all throughout the empty walls and pierced his ears in the most bizarre way possible.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he realized it came from inside the house, the living room right in front of him to be particular, and was almost inhumanely rasped out but shrill at the same time, like it wasn’t one but two voices wailing in unison.

“San-ah?..” Wooyoung whispered only enough that San would be able to hear as he walked inside the living room and expected that maybe now he would be engulfed in the soothing chilliness but was welcomed with the crying getting even louder.

He was willing himself to call out San’s name once more when he saw the source of the wailing.

It was San himself, crouched in the corner of the room and folded into himself as he wrapped his arms around his legs and buried his face into his knees, his white streak of hair in the front curled over his hands as his body trembled with painful hiccups. Wooyoung felt the air leave his lungs at the way the little ghost’s cries were the most he had ever seen him feel so much.

“San-ah, what’s wro-”

“Wooyoung-ah?” A voice oddly similar to San’s but at the same time so unfamiliar interrupted his worried question and Wooyoung took a step back at the goosebumps crawling up his arms. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.

Everything else was the same, like how they were supposed to be, but when San slowly raised his head from his knees, his skin was not the regular pale shade that was so perfect it almost looked translucent but was a sickly dark grey that wrinkled oddly at places, and his cute cat eyes that disappeared when he smiled were completely blacked out, almost indistinguishable from the darkened skin surrounding them. It was terrifying. Wooyoung took another step back.

“Wooyoung-ah, can you see me?” The same voice echoed throughout the house as what Wooyoung thought to be San slightly shifted on the floor to move closer to him, raw hope clinging to the inhumane voice piercing his ears. Any possible answer left Wooyoung’s brain as he felt all the blood in his system freeze for the second time in five minutes.

“Wooyoung-ah, you can see me, right? I’m right here, say something, please.” The creature begged as it scattered up to his feet and walked closer to where Wooyoung stood speechless. Wooyoung gulped as he took another step back, his heart hammering in his chest.

“San-ah, is that you?..” He managed to whisper when he waited too much and the creature’s face distorted into another wave of wails but stopped when he realized the recognition in Wooyoung’s voice.

“Wooyoung-ah…” San choked out with a sob as he closed the gap between them faster than Wooyoung could react and hugged him, trapped him inside his arms and cried into his shoulder, his sobs sounding more and more humane as time passed, more and more like San himself.

“Wooyoung-ah, I- I kept calling out for you bu- but no matter what I did you never heard and- and I couldn’t go ba- back, it was so scary, and then I saw weird pe- people around you but I couldn’t- couldn’t do anything and-”

San kept crying and crying and babbling nonsense into his shoulder but Wooyoung couldn’t even move his mouth to form logical words because-

Because he felt it. He felt as San tightened his grip around him and felt as his hot tears wet his neck where San sobbed into and it wasn’t chilly where he touched. It was warm, like the perfect temperature, like how Wooyoung remembered it to be. How Wooyoung yearned to feel. He felt a tear escape as his eyes were as wide as they could go.

“Sanie?..” He whispered and doubted for a second San actually heard it as his sobs were still loud as ever. “Baby…” He whispered back between two hiccups still shaking his body to the core and Wooyoung’s legs betrayed him as both of them fell onto their knees painfully.

“Sanie…” He whispered once more, hot tears blurred his vision while he frantically tried to get a look at San’s face that only had a little bit of grey left at the corners as they too slowly faded away to leave crimson behind them. Wooyoung cried even harder as he looked at San’s eyes red and puffy with tiredness and tears, half open like his energy was suddenly drained out of his body but his. His eyes that were painfully familiar and the skin under his hands was what he longed to touch even back when it was easily accessible and Wooyoung felt the crimson that gushed out of a deep wound on his forehead and painted his perfect skin red stain his own hands and hugged him tightly, afraid he might disappear without giving him enough time to revel in the feeling.

He realized the only sobs now were his after some time that he was not sure of the length, and San’s breathing that he actually could feel on his neck was quite unsteady so he gulped down his excitement for a second and tried to take another look at San’s body as all of the weight was on him. San’s eyes were locked on the floor as silent tears mixed in with the crimson to make pretty pink stripes that rolled towards his chin to succumb to gravity in the end.

“Wooyoung-ah…” He whispered, barely audible and Wooyoung put a chaste kiss on his lips, just to feel, just to remember and savor it. It felt like his Sanie, too. “Yes, my love, I’m here, it’s okay now.”

“I don’t know what’s happening…” San said, his whisper scared and unsure and so tired Wooyoung felt his chest constrict painfully.

“It’s okay.” He whispered as he wrapped his arms around San’s trembling body and squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s okay, Sanie. I’m here.”


	10. part three: house of cards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A house made of cards, and us, inside  
> Even though the end is visible  
> ...stay like this a little more  
> -house of cards, bts

After another five minutes that passed by as both of them just sat on the floor before San was not trembling like a dry leaf out in the wind and Wooyoung could take him to the bathroom to clean both of them off of the ambiguous blood still oozing out of the deep wound on San’s forehead, he guided San to their shared bed, still half naked with only a towel around his waist and helped him get dressed. Silence surrounded the whole house and their still astounded bodies as Wooyoung chose something comfortable for San to throw on temporarily and still could not bring himself to question what the hell was going on as San stared at the floor with the emptiest look on his pale face.

“This arm hurts,” San whispered just as Wooyoung made him raise both of his arms, confused and a scowl contorting his features, and Wooyoung looked up to see what he was talking about.

“This one?” He pointed at the right arm he was holding up a little lower than the other, to which San nodded approval. The memories of that night came crashing in the quarter of a second as he realized it was his side that the car crashed into, that it was the arm he wailed over when he saw how deformed and inhumane it looked as the life drained out of his body in red, angry drops and-

Tears quickly blurred his vision and Wooyoung sniffled only once before he gently put the arm through the pajamas, as gentle as he could be.

“Does it hurt too much? Is it unbearable?” He asked softly, put his lips against San’s exposed forehead when he was done putting the pajamas on and hand in San’s wet hair as the drops slid through his slim fingers. San shook his from side to side, slowly, eyes closed in the comfort he reveled in for the moment and amplified when he wrapped an arm around Wooyoung waist to bring him closer, put his head on his belly. An old habit Wooyoung used to be conscious of but grew out of the feeling when he realized how comfortable San looked every time he did it.

A blatant whimper forced its way in his throat and Wooyoung had to suppress it by biting his bottom lip as hard as he could while simultaneously wrapping his arms around San’s now clothed shoulders to try and hide his face. It was the hardest thing to try and look strong for San that was probably more confused than he was at the moment, but he was right there, just under his fingertips as Wooyoung squeezed the fabric in his palms, his breath creating a soft patch over Wooyoung’s disgusting mesh top where his mouth was every time his chest heaved up and down, his warmth radiating off of his body flushed against Wooyoung’s and it just was-

“It’s not soft…” San whispered into the silence of the room and it almost sounded like a scream to Wooyoung’s ears for a second. San put a small kiss where his lips were at the moment when Wooyoung did not answer for so long, smiled as he looked up to see Wooyoung returning it when he realized the question marks and stars in San’s eyes. Fondness dripped off of his movements as Wooyoung gently brushed his fingers on San’s jawline and still felt in awe that he could feel his skin under his fingertips. “It’s not?..”

San nodded as he nuzzled Wooyoung’s mash top that kept reminding him bitterly that he needed to take a bath very as soon as possible and whispered again. “It was soft just yesterday. What happened?”

Wooyoung stopped.

“What do you mean?” He asked, his voice slightly higher in nerves and confusion. “It was always like this.”

San frowned harder and flinched when he stretched the wound on his forehead, dressed poorly with a gauze over. “Your hair looks weird too.”

Wooyoung blinked for a moment before he giggled nervously as he simultaneously pushed San into the mattress, spouting “You’re being weird, Sanie, I think you’re too tired to stay awake right now.” at the highest speed until San flinched in pain and laughed afterwards.

“Baby, why are you acting strange? Did I do something embarrassing yesterday?” He sighed and closed his eyes at the exhaustion he felt wash over in a second. “I did, right? Hence the wounds…” He sighed as he wrapped the blankets around himself. “Ah, everyone was there, too. How am I supposed to show up to school now?..” He murmured, voice airy as he dozed off to sleep wrapped like a cute burrito and Wooyoung gulped. He thought it was the other day. Wooyoung had to go through almost a year of pain and suffering and misery and he thought it was the other day.

“You sleep. I will take a shower.” He murmured with the plainest voice as he felt his heart start hammering in his chest and the back of his eyes sting painfully, had to turn his back on San observing him with drowsy but suspicious eyes and comb his hair with his fingers only to pull at the roots, in hopes the pain would distract him from the other.

“Baby, are you okay?” He heard the sheets shift behind him and sniffled sharply as he walked towards the bathroom. “I am, Sanie, just sleep please.”

“Wooyoung-ah?..” San murmured with confusion etched into every syllable that nudged at Wooyoung’s aching brain but he couldn’t bring himself to stop and say anything back as he slammed the door after him, quickly got rid of every piece of clothing that clung to his skin sickeningly and turned the shower on not to let San hear his gut-wrenching sobs under the water.

“Baby?” San whispered to the boy mindlessly scratching his arms as he was curled up in San’s lap with strong arms around his body. The sound of the program they turned on just to have some white noise idly kept playing in the background and Wooyoung did not answer as he traced the red marks along his otherwise pure skin.

“Wooyoung-ah?” San tried again with a slightly worried frown when Wooyoung did not respond for another minute, traced the marks until the skin almost blistered under his nails and jumped up when San nudged him slightly.

“Baby, are you okay?” San’s frown turned even deeper when he saw Wooyoung’s wide eyes search around for any kind of danger for a second then meet his own. Wooyoung blinked as he looked down to see what the stinging feeling on his arm and saw the marks, smiled nervously. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. What were you talking about?”

San looked worried for another five-second until he eased his frown into a too familiar smile. “I was talking about the assignment that I need to complete until Thursday. You know, the one I was struggling to get inspiration for.” He sighed slowly as his chest heaved up and down, captured Wooyoung’s hand to intertwine their fingers together and brush over his fingers with his thumb. Wooyoung gulped at the feeling as he looked straight into lively San’s eyes. “I already lost a whole day, I don’t know if I can make it.”

“It’s fine.” Wooyoung whispered back as he watched San’s hand over his, reveled in the way he could hear his heart beating in a steady, almost unreal rhythm. “It’s fine if you miss this assignment. You got full points from the other ones, right?”

San chuckled slightly, a relaxed and joyful sound, and Wooyoung liked the way it reverberated through his chest. “Right. I don’t have to do this one.”

Wooyoung hummed in agreement and traced the stars named freckles on San’s neck under his fingertips, breathed in and out slowly, his pace matching with San’s

“Did you see my phone anywhere?” San murmured into his hair after a moment of silence adorned with some guy’s tinny voice talking about the betrayal of their best friend through the speakers. “Yunho should be home already. I was supposed to pick him up- but that bastard didn’t even call to check if I was alive.”

“No, I didn’t.” Wooyoung said immediately, robotic. “I’m sorry, you- you lost it yesterday.” He lied easily, like his phone was not confiscated and then given to his family in an unrecognizable state when they found it on his body and like it has not been about a year since Wooyoung has last seen it.

“Really?” San pouted slightly as his fingers played with Wooyoung’s black strands and shrugged with another sigh. “It’s okay. I’ll buy a new one.”

Wooyoung only nodded with another hum of agreement and placed a small kiss on the other side of San’s neck, soft and silent.

“I need to talk to him about our trip, though, we still didn’t find a campsite,” San said, his voice corresponding to the soothing atmosphere surrounding them. “We will miss all the nice places if we don’t book somewhere this week. I did some research...”

Wooyoung took a shaky breath against San’s skin and watched the goosebumps arise under his lips as he brushed them against it in awe, hummed once more, mind starting to get hazy in a fight or flight response he couldn’t help.

“Sanie…” He whispered right below San’s ear and watched San stop his blabbering about a place that was not only beautiful but also had toilets and showers dead instant, placed another kiss on his jaw and then his lips with eyes that begged for more and San blinked for a second. “What happened?”

“Fuck me.” He whispered as his mouth hovered over San’s parted in temporary shock and his deep breathes swimming in lust licked San’s face shamelessly.

San’s eyes widened even more like it was possible, chuckled with a “Wow, easy, baby.” as the corners of his lips turned upwards, obviously enjoying the way Wooyoung started squirming in his lap to try and twist his whole body towards him, his hands cupping San’s face with eyes half lidded in pure want. “Please…” He whispered before biting San’s bottom lip until he drew a groan and pressed their bodies flush against each other. San’s eyes looked into his with something in them that made Wooyoung want to whimper pathetically. He missed it. He missed the way San would look like he would want to devour him whole, doesn’t matter the context, but would treat him so good, would take care of him like no one else would ever be able to.

San would not be able to resist or reject anything Wooyoung asked for anyways, so he just admitted with lush lips on Wooyoung’s neck bruised with the unwanted consequences of his choices and hungry touches all over his body, and it was easy. It was so easy, the way they found their way around like it was written at the back of their minds, the way both of them knew what buttons to push and when to pull back, and it almost made Wooyoung crazy.

This was good, Wooyoung thought as his lips were plush and pink around San, his fingers wrapped around where his mouth wouldn’t reach, the taste so familiar at the back of his throat as it burned but was sweet, just like he remembered, just like how he was yearning for.

This was just fine, Wooyoung thought when San was finally done stretching him out with two fingers and some lube he prayed slightly that it was not expired, kissed him as he bottomed up until Wooyoung’s whole body was shaking under the feeling, eyes showing whites as he could feel all of it, actually _feel_ it and the skin under his own as he could not stop touching, feeling, growing accustomed to it altogether and it was amazing.

He could live like this, Wooyoung thought then just as he felt his mind hazing with the first wave of immense pleasure and he moaned, loud and in a weird unison with the way possessive growls vibrated against his ears.

He _wanted_ to live like this.

With San, his ghost, or whatever being he was, for that moment it didn’t matter. He wanted to exist with San and maybe vanish, perish the way he did and turn into the version of himself that San did. It seemed easy, it was easy when it was with San.

San growled Wooyoung’s name and Wooyoung felt it all throughout his body, in celestial waves only intensified just before he fell over the edge, terrified that it will be over too soon and everything would go back to their shitty state, that he would wake up on some stranger’s bed with his body aching all over and neglected cum over his ass, with the weight of his whole life crashing into him with the first ray of sunshine on the horizon, but no.

When he called for San’s name, broken enough that it sounded nothing like it, San called back like everything was okay, like nothing was waiting for him disguised in a cloak of rainbows and unicorns just to hunt him when he least expected, just to take him down and mock him as he writhed on the floor, no.

As San’s body tensed and his hips jerked into Wooyoung’s and they came almost in unison, San a few thrusts after Wooyoung, this was okay, Wooyoung thought.

It was okay and he could live like this.

Wooyoung loved to be with San.

The giggles they shared over the most trivial things, the warmth that seemed to spread its way throughout his core at the mere glimpse of the stars in San’s eyes, the goosebumps rising over his skin every time he felt San’s breath sweeping over it.

Wooyoung loved how he was the one who hung the moon and loved how he shined brighter than any star. Loved how he knew exactly what Wooyoung needed every time something was wrong, loved how he made him feel like he was the prettiest thing in the world, loved the way he made him feel wanted, needed, desired. Loved him.

Loved the idea of being with him.

He had a vague memory of reading on some shitty random advice blog that you should not be with your soulmate for too long because soulmates change you, it said, and that sometimes the change needs to stop. _The change is unhealthy, obsessive, demeaning when it does not stop,_ it read, over some gloomy but overly aesthetic photos of some flowers.

But was that even their _problem_?

“Baby.” San called out from where he was sitting with a towel around his shoulders as his hair airdried, trying to beat some level as he vigorously tortured a controller. Wooyoung was not sure he was so fond of the nickname by now.

“Sanie, dry your hair. You will get sick.” He mumbled from the corner of the L-shaped sofa he perched himself upon a while now, his arms around his legs bent upwards and chin resting over his knees as he watched San’s character drop-down thirty levels in a second. Could he even get sick? Everything else seemed to be normal, he could cry, bleed and sweat, even get hard and ejaculate, as they tried multiple times ever since and nothing was out of the ordinary even once, but San used to get sick pretty frequently, almost every other week because he rarely slept enough and kept painting like it was his source of oxygen, and _this_ San never got sick even once over the course of the two weeks they spent together.

Then again he did not paint and weirdly did not even mention it other than the assignment that was due Thursday, and did not question the way Wooyoung did not let him go online more than half an hour, did not let him use his personal SNS in fear of him stumbling into something, anything that would even insinuate that he died, has been dead for about a year and his body was in a jar in the form of ashes somewhere in some funeral home Wooyoung never dared to visit even once.

It was agitating, the way he looked and behaved like San but at the same time was so different than how he used to be.

“It’s okay, but can you bring me some chips?” San said without ever prying his eyes off of the big screen as he waved his hand idly towards where the kitchen was supposed to be. Wooyoung looked at him with dead eyes with annoyance written all over them San wasn’t aware of, but got up to get the last of their chips anyways they had at home when his own stomach growled viciously at him. When was the last time he had anything to eat? Wooyoung did not remember.

The kitchen was a hot mess, cleaning being the other thing he did not remember doing in so long, with empty packages of delivery food, dirty plates littered all over the sink and the counter and the table with questionable changes of color on their surface, trash overfilled and curtains drawn to keep what was inside but to bring gloom over the house. Wooyoung skillfully maneuvered around the trash, found the poor chips laying on the table sadly and walked back inside with a mouthful of them to see San looking at the screen, some glint in his eye that Wooyoung did not like so much upon first sight.

“What the fuck Wooyoung?” He hissed lowly, eyes still on the screen and the half of his face that Wooyoung could see twisted in something similar to disgust. He looked down at the opened pack of chips in his hand and then back to San for a second and blinked.

“What?” He said with an exasperated sigh. San sometimes did act bitter about the stupidest things and Wooyoung wasn’t really in the mood to deal with that, right now. “I only ate like two pieces, there’s a lot more-”

“You told people that I died?” San said through his gritted teeth and Wooyoung almost dropped the pack of chips on the floor.

“What- What are you talking about?” His voice shrilled unconfidently, and he forced down the lump formed in his throat in quarter of a second. _How the hell did he figure out?_ was the only sentence written in front of his eyes, in bold, italic, underlined and blinking red, when he was sure he took all the precautions to keep it away from him.

“Don’t fucking act like you don’t know what this is about!” San yelled back with his anger fueled as he mistook Wooyoung’s fear for guilt. “You literally told one of my gaming friends that I was dead- Why did you mess with my console? You can’t even play!”

He got on his feet, the controller still in his hands as he kept spitting fire with a scowl so deep it creased his perfect forehead and Wooyoung could see the little chat screen on the big screen over his shoulder. Of course. The one thing he did not consider a danger turned around and bit him in the ass.

“Or was your sole purpose of sneaking behind my back was to just make me stop playing or something? Was that your little plan?? I never thought that you would stoop so fucking low- what the fuck is wrong with you??” San kept accusing like a madman Wooyoung almost wanted to burst out laughing. Of course. Of course, this was going to happen. What did he even expect?

“Did you think that you were being so fucking smart, that you can get away with it, huh? That I would never find out? It’s just pathetic, Wooyoung.” San hissed dangerously, incriminating in the way he walked as close as he could to tower over Wooyoung in an attempt to intimidate him, but all Wooyoung felt was emptiness, adorned with some desperation, some disappointment, crowned with the feeling of watching everything unfold, like his own body was not his and it was just some stranger that San was yelling red-faced to.

How many times did they have to be in the same situation? How many times before it was all over, before their perfect lie collapsed indefinitely?

“I- I’m sorry, I was just bored the other day and I wanted to- wanted to play and they messaged, I didn’t-” He stuttered, _lied_ , because it was what he would do when San demanded answers, but his voice was a lot less confident than he wanted it to be, too weak for his taste. He didn’t like it, the way San was the cause of the tremor in his hands, the shiver up his spine. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, for the first time in his life.

“And then you thought it was a good idea to tell him that I fucking _died_?” San didn’t even wait to resume his yelling after he listened. He always listened, yes, to fuel his rage like anything that came out of Wooyoung’s mouth irked the very core of him.

“Do you realize how messed up this is? What now, you’re having some episode again? Did you stop taking your meds? Do I have to watch your every move- like are you not even capable of taking care of yourself? I am sick of you being a selfish fucking bitch all the time!”

_Ah_ , Wooyoung thought, _it collapsed already, right?_

“You were sulking just now because I wanted to play for a while, as if I am not spending all of my time with you! I haven’t even painted for ages, just because you couldn’t let go of me. Don’t I deserve a break? Not from this mess of a relationship- all I ask is just some time to do my own shit. Why do you have to be so fucking self-absorbent all the-”

“Stop!” Wooyoung shrieked over San’s voice gradually getting more and more unlike himself, like the fire he consistently spat burned down their house of cards mercilessly. “Just stop.” He looked at San and tried and tried to recognize the man he loved so blindly, all he could see in the fierce eyes that pierced into his soul was how he could go on for hours if Wooyoung let him.

“What? You can’t even bear the consequences of your dumb, selfish actions? Does it hurt to hear the truth?”

Wooyoung scoffed, not particularly at the man in front of him, but the bizarreness of the whole situation. “It’s the furthest thing from the truth.”

San’s eyes widened to their limit in realization, incredulous. “Did you make yourself believe that?” He cackled, a sound so cold, so distant. “You know, I could handle your little, unnecessary acts of jealousy here and there, but this is just a new fucking low for you.”

It already collapsed, before he even realized what was going on, as he struggled to hold the pure white pieces of it; running around, doing flips not to miss any, just for something to get in his way and kick all of them out of his hold, every time.

“I’m done, and I mean it this time.” San said, voice calmer in disappointment, catlike eyes still fierce with a dangerous glint to them. “I don’t want to deal with you anymore. Telling people that I died…” He took a step back, shaking his head hopelessly. “What’s next? Actually killing me?”

And Wooyoung was tired. He was tired of struggling to try and glue the pieces together, make them as pretty as they got, just for one of them to come and kick it across the room, like mean children and a sandcastle that was destined to collapse, purposefully or not.

“You already broke up with me…” Wooyoung said, accompanied with a dreadful smile curving his lips that could not stand the direness of the situation. Confusion ate away the last of San’s rage and left a scowl behind it. Was it the tears he was expecting?

“Yeah- But I’m telling you, this time it’s for good.” He said with the remnants of the anger he had left. “You told him that I fucking died! Who just says that-”

“Because you died San!” Wooyoung yelled and realized he didn’t have the opened pack of chips in his hands anymore as he waved them, eyes slightly welled up in frustration, voice just shy of a shriek.

“You died that day and I watched you bleed on the road like a broken faucet, oh my god-” He stopped to draw a shaky breath down his lungs at the red painting the back of his eyelids. Just how many times did he have to describe it? Just in how many he had to suffer? “And- and I don’t even know what the fuck is going on anymore, okay?! That if I just lost it again and if it’s all in my head, and you- You, acting like nothing ever happened, like I haven’t been through hell and back since last year… So- so, just stop talking and- and just…”

 _Just go away_ , he wanted to say, because it was too much. Because the lie collapsed and their perfect sandcastle crumbled down and they were their own ends, their own pains and their own sufferings _and Wooyoung was so tired_ -

The familiar chill was what interrupted his thoughts, a chill he almost forgot how comforting it was, that he unexpectantly missed, felt relaxed as it brushed against his skin soothingly.

“Wooyoung-ah?” San whispered, a voice innocent and breathy and Wooyoung just now realized through his unshed tears that pure confusion was what painted, and maybe softened San’s features now. The controller in his hand fell down over his feet but went straight through it just to roll away with a terrible crinkle.

“San-ah?..” Wooyoung whispered back, eyes wide in disbelief and utter confusion as tears silently rolled down his cheeks. Was he back? Was his Sanie gone again, for the nth time and was he now-

“Young-ah, what-” San started once again, voice incredibly soft, contrary to the viciousness of it just seconds ago, but in another second vanished into thin air, without even getting the chance to close his mouth. Wooyoung felt his breath hitch in his throat, froze for the next couple of seconds he tried to understand what the fuck was going on, but the chilliness was going away and tears kept blurring his vision as he chased the last of it mindlessly, yelled San’s name in hopes that he was just fucking with him, that he was in the other room cackling with Soobin or started playing his cards and that if he would call for him enough times he would get annoyed and come back, but no.

San was gone. With no trace of ever being there at all.


	11. part three: sand castles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we built sand castles that washed away

There was a knock on the door.

The afternoon sunlight gently seeped through the curtains to illuminate the room, warm and tender.

Wooyoung slightly smiled at the sound as it automatically gave him annoying butterflies, locked his phone and jumped off of his bed as he pocketed it, straightened his clothes on his way, hastily fixed his bed hair before he finally opened the door.

“You’re late.” He smiled at the way San’s dimples tiredly deepened and his eyes almost disappeared into small crescents as he leaned on the doorframe.

“I’m sorry.” He said gently as he closed his eyes for a second. His eyebags were too purple to be considered healthy and his posture was so slouched that Wooyoung wanted to press a hand over his back. “I was trying to complete a painting and then had to submit it before I could come here.”

Wooyoung felt the butterflies twist and churn harder in his stomach like a high schooler at the slightest glimpse of that smile, every single time without a miss. “You didn’t sleep at all?” He asked worry etched into his voice even though he tried very hard not to overreact. San shook his head from side to side with an adorable pout and Wooyoung’s smile dropped for a second.

“Oh.” He stopped to chew on his bottom lip for a second. “Then you should’ve just got some rest. We can hang out later, it’s not like we have to do it now or anyth-”

“No.” San cut him off, urgent like if Wooyoung said one more word it would mean the end of the world. “No, it’s completely fine.” He shifted his weight to his other leg with another smile full of dimples and Wooyoung felt the stupid warmth spread all over his chest once again. “I’m used to pulling all-nighters, I promise.”

Wooyoung jutted his lips out as he tried his very best to hide the nervous tremor in his hands. “Are you sure?”

San nodded with the biggest smile.

They both awkwardly waited at the door for the next minute before San finally asked. “So… Will you invite me inside?”

Wooyoung flushed red from head to toe with a nod probably too enthusiastic as they walked inside to spend the rest of their day on Wooyoung’s dorm bed.

“Do you like your popcorn plain or flavored?” Wooyoung asked when the worst of the embarrassment of waiting at the door like two idiots faded away.

San laughed as he sat down on the floor to find something at least okay to watch on Wooyoung’s old laptop, a sound tired but still felt like a blessing to Wooyoung’s ears. “Why do you even have flavored popcorn?”

Wooyoung felt another blush creep up his cheekbones as he put down the flavored popcorn back into the little cabinet. “Yeosang likes it…”

San let a yawn interrupt his chuckling for a second. “I’m a simple man, Jung Wooyoung.”

They decided to settle on the bed despite San’s concerns about staining the sheets with orange juice as Wooyoung convinced him they would be super cautious and not even a drop would escape out of their mugs that did not match but were still cute together and it was fine anyways, it was just some sheets.

Wooyoung was a commenter, as he made it very obvious to San during their little cinema dates, and that day was not an exception as they started watching some random episode of How I Met Your Mother, even though it was practically both of their at least third time watching it over. On a normal day San added one or two, mostly agreeing when Wooyoung got frustrated at an ending and wiped his tears like he was walking on thin ice when Wooyoung couldn’t hold it at the break up of his favorite couple, but that day he silently ate popcorn, hummed when Wooyoung ranted on and about and watched as the Netflix logo popped up, another episode auto played.

They had a comfortable distance of a couple of inches between their hips, skinship yet not that familiar of a concept, yet their knees brushed against each other when Wooyoung leaned over to take his orange juice from the side table and when San reached out to pause the episode as Wooyoung had to take a bathroom break. It was endearing, how they both were almost afraid to go too fast and yearned for the smallest of touches as they lingered for a second too long, simultaneously, even when it was accidental.

The only thing that was not comfortable was that San literally struggled to keep his eyes open the whole time.

“San-ah…” Wooyoung smiled with a whisper as San’s head lolled to the side for the nth time and San jumped awake, watched a couple of popcorn roll down on the floor and blinked in tired confusion. Wooyoung’s smile deepened fondly.

“Ah…” San sighed as he squeezed his eyes in belated realization. “I did it again, right?”

Wooyoung smiled as he bit his lip to contain his smile getting even bigger.

“I promise this is the last time. I won’t fall asleep anymore, I swear.” San shook his head from side to side to get rid of the worst of his drowsiness and Wooyoung carefully took the popcorn bowl off of his lap.

“You know it’s completely okay if you want to-”

“No, no, it’s okay.” San protested as exhaustion dragged his voice lower and lower and he brushed the knuckles of his cute little fists over his eyes. “I _want_ to spend my time with you, there is no point if I sleep…”

Wooyoung felt the same warmth spread through his arms to reach his fingertips to tingle until he had to wriggle his fingers around his cup still filled with orange juice. San was the sunshine as it seeped through his dorm curtains and soothing breezes that played with his hair until it was a disheveled mess, his cheeks pink and his smile shy. San didn’t have to do anything in particular for Wooyoung to fall in love every time he looked at him, he only had to be San and Wooyoung would be ready to go.

“Okay.” Wooyoung hid the red of his cheeks behind his cup and thought he was slick when his voice did not sound as weak as he felt like. Though, it did not even take 10 more minutes until San completely dozed off over Wooyoung’s shoulder, despite any resistance.

Wooyoung did not try to keep him awake this time, only cautiously made him lay his head on his lap instead of his shoulder and gained an adorable huff in the process, put the popcorn on the nightstand and turned the volume down to nothing. It wasn’t like he could watch the rest anyways, San’s sleeping face was the most spectacular thing he had ever seen in his whole life, with his slightly parted lips and long lashes over his cutest cheeks, and-

Was that a chip of blue paint sticking over his long hair at the side?

Wooyoung smiled. San didn’t have to do anything for Wooyoung to fall head over heels for him.

It was the phone ringing that interrupted the peace.

Wooyoung’s breath hitched in his throat in panic as his eyes searched the room in a haste to try and find the source of the piercing sound and further panicked when San slightly stirred in his sleep. It was his own phone; he knew that much from the ringtone. He still had to eye-search the room until he gave up and put San’s head over a pillow as delicate as a human was capable of to get up and tiptoe around the room to finally find it under a book and answer immediately, without even checking the caller ID.

“Yes?” He whispered into the receiver as he checked if San woke up, saw he hadn’t moved an inch.

“Wooyoung-ah?..” Yeosang said over the line, his voice with a tint of shock that Wooyoung did not completely understand why it was present. Yeosang needed to be at his lectures around this time, there was no way he would be able to call.

He didn’t understand why nothing came out of his lips either.

The golden sunrays darkened until they were a pungent orange.

“It was ringing for so long.” Yeosang murmured when Wooyoung did not open his mouth for another thirty seconds. _Of course_ , Wooyoung thought, how long has it been? Since he arranged the most awkward meeting they had yet to have, yelled at him for telling Yeonjun everything unauthorized and then walked out to ignore him to the point Yeosang stopped trying to reach out, so why did he even call now?

“I was in the bathroom.” Wooyoung lied, all emotion drained out of his voice. San’s sleeping face disappeared into the pitch black corners of the living room.

“Oh… Okay.” Yeosang said, a certain restlessness still lingering in his tinny voice. No one said anything for another moment.

“Why did you call?” Wooyoung said when the silence prolonged and punctured his ears uncomfortably.

“I..” Yeosang started, waited for a second to give himself time to sigh. “They called me from your clinic, told me you have not been attending your therapy sessions.”

Wooyoung did not say anything, realized his throat was sore, his bones ached in places as his stomach grumbled furiously. “Yes.” His whisper sounded like a scream in the endless silence engulfing the whole house as it resonated with the violent wind rustling the leaves outside.

Right. He was waiting.

How many days has it been?

When was the last time he ate? The last time he drank a glass of water? What time was it? Which _day_ was it?

Yeosang’s sighed and it felt like a ton over his own shoulders.

“Why, Wooyoung?” He said and all of a sudden sounded exhausted, sounded like he didn’t even want to be having this conversation and Wooyoung thought he would rather go back to his spot on the couch that he slightly dented into and wait to slowly rot along.

“I-” He started, lost his voice somewhere in the process. “I just-”

The line was silent until another sigh came through.

“I can’t look after you all the time, Wooyoung.”

“Yeosang-ah.” He said and bit his lip to try and stop the tremor to his lips. “I think I’m gonna die.”

More leaves rustled and a car passed by with its engine whirring loudly. Wooyoung felt a terrible tremor run up his spine. He wished he didn’t know the feeling.

“Wooyoung, look, I am your friend, not your caretaker. You can’t keep taking and not give anything in return, it doesn’t work like that.” Yeosang snapped after a moment of silence.

“Yeosang, I-” Wooyoung tried to protest but his brain was too empty to say anything more than that.

“You know I really thought that you were getting better, but I guess I should’ve known this can’t go on. You need to take care of yourself -”

“No, Yeosang, liste-”

“No, Wooyoung, I can’t do this anymore. Please just go to your appointments okay?” Yeosang said as determined as he could sound. “And when you’re ready for a proper conversation, give me a call.”

The line died before Wooyoung could even open his mouth to muster any word other than a broken whimper. His lungs started to burn terribly.

 _…not your caretaker,_ echoed his brain, _I can’t do this anymore_. He threw his phone across the room and heard a shriek accompany the crack of it, didn’t realize it was his own trying to suppress the voice inside his head.

The warm breeze was gentle against his skin.

“Baby.” He heard San whisper against his ear and stopped spacing out at the beautiful carnations as they swayed around them like little suns.

San smiled when Wooyoung looked into his eyes like a baby struggling to focus. “I asked if you talked to your friend.” He whispered once more with a gentle nuzzle to Wooyoung’s neck and Wooyoung closed his eyes with a sigh as he found himself leaning into the touch.

“Yeosang?” He asked as his fingers played with the bluish grey mullet over San’s nape mindlessly as he laid over him. “No, why?”

San kept trailing his fingers along Wooyoung’s spine as he scoffed. “What do you mean? After what happened last night-” He put a chaste kiss on Wooyoung’s neck. “Seriously, where does he keep finding _those_ people?”

“Why?~” He giggled when San’s breath tickled slightly.

“No offense, but your friend _is_ kinda awkward, baby. He should definitely slow down with the dating.”

Wooyoung sighed cutely and nodded, his nose buried in San’s hair as he sniffed in his cologne not so creepily. “I guess you’re right. His date was really coarse, too. I couldn’t believe my ears when she opened her mouth and spouted all that crudeness towards us.”

San proceeded to pepper his neck with small kisses and Wooyoung had to use every willpower in him not to roll over and off San’s body and towards the ground, giggling. “Right? She was so rude. Good thing we didn’t have to stay there for long.”

“Sanie.” Wooyoung returned the kiss over San’s collar bone as he felt his arm tighten around himself, just to make him have a sense of security. “Do you think we’re such a bad couple?”

“No way.” San protested without even thinking twice. “We’re the cutest couple on all the campus, they’re just jealous.”

Wooyoung smiled as he put a small kiss over San’s lips. “You think so?”

He realized San stopped for a second, searched his eyes as the warm breeze disheveled both their hair mercilessly, returned the smile as he tucked Wooyoung’s blonde curls behind his ear. “Even if I was given a million choices, I would choose you every time, baby.”

 _No_ , Wooyoung thought abruptly, _no, you wouldn’t._ _Stop lying._ The soothing breeze slowly turned into a storm.

_“-young-ah…”_

“I will always be with you, Wooyoung-ah.” San said as his smile widened but his voice was not his. The sun hid behind the thick, grey clouds, taking its warm rays with it as the golden carnations slowly wilted to become a sickly brown.

“We’re okay, Wooyoung-ah, just listen to me.” San said and his smile deepened into something Wooyoung could not recognize as the skin around it cracked painfully. “We’re okay. We don’t have to listen to anyone, right? Nothing’s wrong about us.”

“Sanie, what-” Wooyoung started with a scowl, confused and almost scared, but could not finish when he felt the arms around him force all the air inside his lungs in a second.

“Shh, it’s okay. Don’t listen to anyone. You have me.” San murmured and Wooyoung _wanted_ to calm down to his voice, to the familiarity, but something was terribly wrong.

_“Wooyoung-ah!”_

“San, I can’t breathe-” Wooyoung wheezed out, San smiled further until his cheeks broke into it.

“I can’t breathe either, but I love you.”

His eyes slowly collapsed until they were nothing but two black holes branded at the edges and took the last thing familiar about him.

_“Wooyoung-ah!!”_

Wooyoung wanted to scream as San rotted along with the once beautiful flowers as he writhed over his body, but his voice was nowhere to be found.

“We’re okay, Wooyoung-ah, you know that.”

“No matter what happens, no matter if you go mad and I break all of my bones, it’s okay. Everything is okay. We can go on like this, I don’t mind the pain.”

“I love you so much and that’s what matters, Wooyoung-ah.”

“WOOYOUNG-AH!”

Wooyoung opened his eyes. He didn’t see the bright sun or the storm or pathetically decomposing flowers or San’s horrifying face.

It was Yeonjun.

It was Yeonjun as he looked at him with utmost worry written all over his face, his hands holding Wooyoung’s wrists for dear life as he yelled at him to breathe, to look at him, to get a hold of himself.

Wooyoung realized they were on the floor where he picked up the call with Yeosang and everything felt and sounded like he was underwater, floating, senses dull but he realized it was not dark anymore. It was okay now. Yeonjun was here.

“Hyung-” He managed to wheeze out and could see Yeonjun’s breath hitch with something raw the moment he opened his mouth, the desperation turning into hope. He could see Yeonjun telling him more, probably about if he was okay, or if he could hear, what happened, but he couldn’t. His ears were clogged with salty, bitter ocean.

Wooyoung realized he liked the scenery of Yeonjun before him.

“Hyung, I-” He whined out, tried to catch his breath and failed miserably as all the muscle in his body collectively gave out on him and he collapsed, not on the floor but into the familiarity of Yeonjun’s arms as they wrapped around him and did not even dare suffocate his already burning lungs.


	12. part three: blueprint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i throw myself to the end of the sea  
> without regrets

The all too familiar beeping sound was what he heard before he could even open his eyes.

It wasn’t like he had anything with hospitals or doctors, but the smell of disinfectants as they attacked his nose and the artificial, tinny beeping right before the bed he was probably laying on irked the very core of him.

Wooyoung forced his eyes open when he didn’t feel like his eyelids were made of stones, and still almost failed in the process.

It was too familiar. The white walls painted in baby blue just to try and make the atmosphere less intimidating, the slightly chilly air occasionally slapping him across the face and the eerie silence surrounding his whole being even though he knew there were hundreds of people walking around in the same building.

His heart started beating faster and the beeping caught up in no seconds.

Wooyoung decided he hated the beeping machine even more now.

“Ah, you’re awake.” He heard, along with a sound that he realized was a door sliding on and off, subsequently.

He missed it. He missed the calm to it, the way it sounded like the most soothing thing sometimes, how it felt like it would be able to pull him back up from the darkest pit he would throw himself willingly into.

The beeping got even faster.

“Yeonjun-hyung…” He tried to say as Yeonjun slowly walked inside to sit beside him, just opposite to the monitor, fixed the sleeves of his white shirt he rolled up, moves erratic and jerky. It came out as nothing but a pathetic wheeze.

Yeonjun smiled, as understanding as he has always been, but it had a different tint to it this time. Wooyoung thought he had never been so scared of fucking something up.

“You tired your voice pretty bad back there. It’s probably gone.” He said as he looked anywhere but Wooyoung, his glasses low over the tip of his nose and hair a disheveled mess. Wooyoung could physically hear the sound of his heartbreaking into million pieces.

He didn’t want that. He never wanted to draw Yeonjun into his dirt that he kept rolling in, never wanted to make him roll alongside.

“Hyung, I-” He started but Yeonjun shook his head from side to side, his smile slightly more like himself.

“It’s okay, Wooyoung-ah. Let’s not talk about it now. You just woke up.”

And Wooyoung wanted to push it so bad, tell him about everything and hope he would understand, maybe apologize for making him go through and put up with all of it, and even pay for hospital bills as he had learned later on and regretted everything when he realized he had no way, financially or spiritually, to pay him back.

He didn’t. Just for the sake of the smile on Yeonjun’s face.

It was known to him, however, as Yeonjun helped him get discharged a couple of hours of drowsy eye-opening and closing later because apparently his legs were made out of jelly, that he has been out for about half a day, has been appointed to his psychologists and had to pay a visit almost immediately, as soon as he could stand up on his own, and that the doctors were shocked at how fucked up his blood levels were. Wooyoung told him he has not been eating well, if not at all, but did not go into much detail when Yeonjun nodded as he drove.

It wasn’t necessarily awkward as Yeonjun helped him walk inside, legs still jelly-like, and since Wooyoung had no personal belongings to carry around it was quite comfortable, almost warm enough even though Yeonjun completely forgot to take an extra layer for Wooyoung as he tried to rush him to the hospital. Wooyoung thought he didn’t need it anyways as Yeonjun shielded his body when the wind blew particularly too hard towards him.

What was awkward was when Yeonjun safely placed him on top of the bed, tucked him in as he grimaced at the way the room, along with the rest of the house was a complete mess, a questionable smell lingering in the air, and did not ask anything as he straight up started cleaning. Wooyoung would be embarrassed if he wasn’t on so many sedatives and wasn’t slowly turning into a blanket burrito as his eyelids were too heavy to keep open.

When he opened his eyes, it was to hushed footsteps beside the bed.

Wooyoung blinked once, saw Yeonjun was kneeling right beside the bed, in front of the nightstand with a piece of paper in his hand, blinked twice and realized he had his blazer on and car keys ready.

“Hyung…” He whispered as a rush of panic coursed through his veins, voice still coarse to the point it came out half air.

Yeonjun froze immediately to look at him like a child caught red-handed, appalled. “Oh.” Wooyoung struggled out of his blanket burrito as Yeonjun threaded between the futile piece of paper still in his hand and Wooyoung. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Hyung.” He repeated. Yeonjun sighed as a smile curved the corners of his lips upwards, defeated.

“Wooyoung-ah.” He whispered as he walked closer, calm and soothing like he always was, crumpled the paper in his palm and put it in his pocket. “I cleaned and cooked a bit. Eat when you get up, okay?”

Wooyoung didn’t realize waking up to Yeonjun’s voice was something he actually liked.

“Hyung.” He pleaded, attempted to crawl closer to Yeonjun as he stopped him immediately. His voice cracked at the end pathetically as unshed tears were ready to fall down any second. “Don’t go.”

Yeonjun lost his words for a moment. “Wooyoung-ah, I have to-”

“Please…” Wooyoung whispered, desperation evident in the little voice he had left as it too was shaking threateningly. “Hyung, please.”

Yeonjun contemplated and Wooyoung could see the hesitancy as his eyes trembled, hated that he himself was the reason. “Okay.” He said with a small smile, pushed Wooyoung gently into the bed once again. “Okay, I will stay, but you have to go to sleep now, it’s too late for you to be up.”

Wooyoung did as soon as his brain allowed him to be sure that Yeonjun wouldn’t be abandoning him in the middle of the night.

He learned the next day that Yeonjun slept on the couch and felt disgusting about it, even though Yeonjun told him it was okay about a million times, and then realized he had been wearing the same suit since yesterday, even slept in it, and felt even worse.

“Hyung, you should’ve got something else to wear.” He mumbled as he picked out a pair of sweatpants and a simple t-shirt, felt even worse when the thought that he was giving him his dead boyfriend’s clothes registered.

“Wooyoung-ah, it’s okay, really.” Yeonjun said and took the clothes but did not attempt to change at all. “Actually…” He mumbled, voice small, gentle, but etched in determination. “I think we should talk.”

And Wooyoung knew they would have to talk at some point anyways, but knowing that it was coming did not stop him from shaking all over when Yeonjun actually worded it.

“Okay…” He said before they settled on the couches in the living room, because he knew there was no running away this time and he did _not_ want to fuck it up once more, even if there was nothing to fuck up anymore.

“You need to tell me what happened,” Yeonjun asked, more like demanded but not in a demanding way, clothes put somewhere behind him idly as they sat face to face, Wooyoung tracing the threading of the couch with his eyes nervously.

The silence surrounded both of them for a moment. It was the first time Wooyoung ever felt uncomfortable when around Yeonjun and he hated every second of it.

“Why did you come?”

Yeonjun took a second to process for a reason Wooyoung did not understand until he broke his silence with a slight scowl. “You called me.”

Wooyoung blinked. “What?”

“You called me.” Yeonjun repeated. “It wasn’t a proper phone call because all you did was… you know, cry, and didn’t even say a word. I thought you called me by mistake.”

Wooyoung blinked once more because he did not call Yeonjun in the time interval he actually clearly remembered that included him talking to Yeosang, and then smashing his phone on the floor. A warm chill arose goosebumps on his skin.

“Hyung, hold my hand.” Wooyoung whispered, reached out and Yeonjun did with a scowl on his face, like an instinct.

“Why? Are you feeling sick? Should we go back to the hospital? I’ll get ready in a-”

“No.” Wooyoung interrupted as he shook his head from side to side, tried to gulp down the huge bump sitting in his throat with closed eyes as the chill did not go away but magnified immensely. “No, please, hold on for a second.”

“Okay…” Yeonjun murmured, unsure, concerned, and confused, but did not let go.

“This is San’s house.” Wooyoung blurted out only seconds later, eyes still closed with the fear of seeing the kindness disappear from Yeonjun’s.

But when he opened them, all he saw in Yeonjun’s eyes was the familiar understanding.

He liked it. He liked seeing it.

He liked Yeonjun.

“I know.” was what Yeonjun said when Wooyoung told him about how San died in a car crash, Wooyoung was the only witness, and things were pretty rocky after that. “Your friend told me about this much.”

Wooyoung nodded as he retreated his hands slowly, kept staring at them. The chill was still comfortably there, but he didn’t feel like he needed the anchor anymore.

“I had underlying conditions; depression, anxiety and panic disorder, most of which caused by my family, and San helped a lot.” He gulped slowly, eyes still looking anywhere but the person sitting across him. “Our relationship was full of flaws that we kept ignoring, he was manipulative, and I kept hurting him unwillingly.” A bitter smile crawled up his face and he could see Yeonjun’s concerned scowl go a little deeper. “Believe me, people at the ER _knew_ about us.”

“But he was my _everything_ and when-” He stopped, thought about a word to avoid saying _died_ as he still felt the chill right beside him. “After that night, things were bad. I blame myself for everything.”

Yeonjun opened his mouth in obvious protest but Wooyoung beat him to it with a smile. “I know, hyung. I know it wasn’t _technically_ my fault, but-” He stopped when he trembled dangerously and his already burning eyes welled up with painful tears. “We were having a fight, which was not so out of the blue, we always fought, and his last words were ‘let’s just break up’ and ‘I’m going home’ and just-”

A tear slowly rolled down his hollowed cheeks as others quickly followed behind and Wooyoung sniffed as he tried to wipe them with a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry, hyung, it was just too much, I- I’m being dramatic again-”

“No.” Yeonjun interrupted with a hurt scowl. Wooyoung could see the shared pain in his eyes as he looked at him with all the care in the world. “You’re talking about someone you love dying, Wooyoung-ah. It’s fine.”

Even more tears streamed down his face as he sobbed with a whine. “Hyung, why are you so nice?!” Yeonjun blinked, appalled at the outburst. “What do you mean, I just-”

As Wooyoung did nothing but mumble out broken apologies about everything he did and sincere _thank you_ ’s for anything he ever did for Wooyoung, Yeonjun smiled, amused but reassuring nonetheless and patted his back gently until he could stop his hiccups for long enough to speak.

And then he told about how he almost took his own life in the bathtub of his best friend, tasted bitter in his mouth saying it as their quarrel played in his head, and about how if Yeosang was a couple of minutes late he would not be there anymore. Yeonjun listened with the same hurt all over his face as he spoke about how Yeosang told him he needs to get treatment because things were going too bad and he was scared he would not be there the next time, took care of everything as Wooyoung sat back and waited.

“They said I had PTSD and relapsed hard, also was in the process of developing maladaptive daydreaming, said I should be confined.” He stopped, tried to arrange his thoughts as he sniffed. “I stayed there for about five months, then found a job because I was staying at my friend’s apartment for free and did not want to be a freeloader.” He stopped for another second. “But then we had a fallout and I had to move here.” He half lied and did not tell him the part he wanted to be with San, so he was already ready to move out any second.

Yeonjun nodded as he pressed his lips together. Wooyoung curved his lips into a trembling smile. “You know the rest.”

“I know.” Yeonjun said as he held out more tissues that he brought at some point in their conversation.

Wooyoung sniffed once more and took the tissues, blew his nose for a straight ten seconds as Yeonjun waited with a small smile.

“I stopped working at the café too.”

“I know. I went there after a while, they told me.”

“I don’t deserve you, hyung.” Wooyoung whispered, broken and tired after he told him everything about how he fell into one of his darkest places and did things he shouldn’t have done, and then fell even deeper and probably relapsed, which was what he witnessed yesterday.

“It’s not about who deserves who, Wooyoung-ah.” Yeonjun sighed slowly, not like he was burdened but like he was trying to process quietly. “It’s about what makes someone happy.”

Wooyoung did not say anything as he watched how his own fingers wrap around the ball of tissue in his palm. It was almost exactly what _he_ would say, but why didn’t it have the same empty effect in his stomach? Why did it feel like the words actually meant something this time and weren’t to make him momentarily feel okay?

More tears queued up to stream down, but he blinked them away before Yeonjun could see. The chilliness slowly simmered down to zero beside him and he, for the first time, felt relief when it disappeared.

“You’re right, hyung.” He whispered, followed by another sniff. “I know.” Yeonjun grinned, to which Wooyoung threw an unused ball of tissues, to which Yeonjun ducked with a small giggle.

“What I was trying to say that day is…” Yeonjun started when Wooyoung stopped pouting playfully as he realized it was the last piece of clean tissue that he threw on the floor just like that. “I don’t mind any of the things you just said or forgot about for now.” He smiled. “I don’t mind how many months you spent at a facility, or I don’t mind broken you were, are. I just wanted to be the reason for your happiness.”

Wooyoung did not try to stop the tears this time but they weren’t any left anyways.

“Are we too late then?” He whispered, scared of the answer and Yeonjun looked horrified to hear it.

“No!” He said, almost outraged at the way Wooyoung could even dare think about it. “No, of course not. But we have to prioritize your health first.” He nodded once to self-affirm. “You’re obviously still not healed, and I want you to feel better before I let myself expect anything from you.” He smiled softly, tilted his head to the side slightly. “Is this okay with you?”

Wooyoung nodded before he even let himself second guess anything.


	13. part three: holo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything about you and I  
> Will disappear

Life did not immediately treat him better and embrace him with kindness after that.

First, they decided that Wooyoung would pay a belated visit to his psychiatrist right the next day since he had been putting it off for a couple of weeks now and he needed immediate help, to which Wooyoung agreed with a nod.

Next, Yeonjun offered that he needed to stay away from this house, which was obviously one of the biggest reasons that played a role in what happened the day before, and Wooyoung could only laugh dryly.

“Where would I go, hyung? I don’t even have a job.”

“You don’t have any friends you could stay with for a while?” Yeonjun asked, worried but he still had his ground in a way that Wooyoung was mesmerized of.

“No.” He said without giving much thought to it. “I used to live with Yeosang but we kinda-” He stopped, overwhelmed.

“Stay with me, then.” Yeonjun offered and Wooyoung looked like his head doubled in size.

“Hyung, what-” He stammered, getting even more overwhelmed but it was all okay when Yeonjun smiled at him for a quarter of a second.

“Stay with me, Wooyoung-ah. My house is big enough.”

Wooyoung tried to protest with all his might for the next twenty minutes but Yeonjun beat him to it every time.

They started packing the day after Wooyoung paid his visit to his doctor that very seriously warned him if he did not comply and take his pills this time, they would have to put him back in the hospital, to which Wooyoung pouted all day as a blanket burrito over Yeonjun’s couch as Yeonjun made him some chamomile tea, with a smile on his face.

“Wooyoung-ah, is this all?” Yeonjun called out as he carried out the carrier Wooyoung filled to the brim earlier. Wooyoung flinched slightly from where he was looking at San’s smiling face on the photo frames, turned towards where the voice came from. “I’ll get the rest, hyung!”

The sound of the door closing resonated throughout the silence of the house after Yeonjun yelled an affirmative _okay_. Everything was where they would normally be, in perfect condition; the couch they would roll over, the bed they would make love in, full of memories he was finally leaving behind, with only a slight layer of dust covering it all. Was San still there, perched on top of some couch for the whole process, watching them pack everything Wooyoung would need to survive for a couple of days until Yeonjun and he could find a way to supply anything else he would need, or was he still sleepy, his eyes closed as an ethereal smile twisted his lips at the edges, was he still there or was he gone forever when he suddenly disappeared into thin air that day, Wooyoung didn’t know.

Wooyoung didn’t want to know anymore.

Wooyoung didn’t want the pain constantly loitered at the back of his mind as he existed in this house, as every memory, good or bad, lingered before his eyes, over his skin and inside his palms and made him itch so much he couldn’t even take the couple of hours they spent packing anymore.

It was too much. Everything was too much and Wooyoung was tired of it.

Thought of calling out for San popped in his head for a second, just to see if he was there, maybe to tell him he was leaving, that he probably won’t be back anymore, or he wanted to think he would not because this house bore so much pain and suffering that he did not want to carry with him anymore, that he knew he should not carry with him anymore.

He decided against it, in fear of feeling that comforting chilliness and not being able to take a step back anymore.

Instead, he walked out to see Yeonjun asking him if everything was okay with eyes full of pure concern and fondness that he had grown accustomed to.

The night air was chilly in the way Wooyoung recognized by now.

Unknown cars passed them by with their too bright lights shining over both of their angry limbs flailing around as they yelled hurtful words into the air that was exceptionally chillier than how Wooyoung remembered it.

Normally San’s voice would pierce through his ears painfully, sometimes too shrill, sometimes deep and robotic or monster-like but it would shatter his heart into a million pieces every time and in return, he would try to retaliate and hurt him even more, just like how it happened that day, just like how they tried to tear each other apart with their words like daggers every now and then and sometimes succeeded, sometimes only scratched the surface of their patience, but always waited, waited until both of their wounds healed, just to rinse and repeat once again.

Wooyoung could not hear San’s voice that day.

He could see his veins popping over his incredibly adorable freckles on his neck, could see the way his face turned red and his pretty eyes widened as if they would pop out, could see how he flailed his arms around, probably trying to support the venom surrounding his words as he spit them out. Wooyoung could see, feel that he was speaking to hurt, spoke to hurt in return, screamed, yelled before he even thought about what to say because it was all-natural, it was all the same, every time. Every time they would yell at each other the same words, feel the same dreads, hurt the same way, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat-

But it was chilly.

It was chilly.

“I’m going home,” San said, stepped down the sidewalk in a backstep, took a couple more, watching how Wooyoung was on the verge of breaking down.

Wooyoung knew what happened next.

Wooyoung would always know what happened next, as the sound of the engine whirred too loudly and too closely, as the lights shined a bit brighter on San’s body with every second as he stood there in the middle of the road, drunk and stupid and mad, _too_ mad, but something would hold him back every time like it was a punishment that he had to go through often enough. Wooyoung would be there watching, coerced to just stand still as the car he remembered too vividly dragged San’s body along with it, he would remember the way San looked terrified before Wooyoung was not able to see it in his eyes anymore, would remember the concrete, the light, the red-

Wooyoung also knew that was not the case anymore. Not this time.

“San-ah!” He screamed just as he could hear the engine and the way the tires screeched on the asphalt get closer and closer, took a step towards San watching him with wide eyes, took another and another until he held his arm and yanked him back onto the sidewalk, wrapped his arms around him as tightly as his fragile body allowed. The car slowed as the tires screeched painfully but drove off with curses yelled into the nothingness, like the other ones did the whole night.

“Wooyoung, what-” San started, his voice did not have the anger, frustration and disappointment, did not have the venom as it vibrated against Wooyoung’s shoulder silently and Wooyoung felt tears wet his lashes as he heard the song of crickets fill the night, now that their angry screams did not.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered into San’s neck, just against the pretty constellations, felt the fear run through his way when San did not move between his arms, questioned if he did it this time, if he saved him, if it was over. “I’m sorry, Sanie, I-”

“It’s okay.” San whispered, Wooyoung took a deep breath when he felt arms gently wrap around his own body. “It’s okay, Young-ah, you did it.”

Wooyoung felt the breath he took catch in his throat painfully.

“I did it?” He managed to mumble out, just realized his tears blurred his vision enough to create bright lightbulbs out of the stars that surrounded them. His voice was shaky, but he could feel San’s smile against his shoulder, tried to see it between the tears and the airy feeling that soothed his chest, but San hugged him harder, did not let him go just yet.

“You did it, Young-ah.” He whispered, soft, gentle as he squeezed him harder but all it made Wooyoung feel was the comforting pressure of being inside his arms, the comforting presence of his breath licking his neck sweetly.

It was chilly.

Wooyoung knew exactly why it was chilly.

“I need to go now,” San whispered once more after they bathed in the night and its peacefulness, the comforting presence of each other, for seconds neither of them could count.

“I know,” Wooyoung whispered meekly, as the countless tears silently accompanied their consolation, as he sniffed the way San smelled like beautiful flowers and a small hint of vanilla, one last time.

The chilliness magnified until Wooyoung’s fingertips felt numb, but he did not let go.

He did not let go until the body inside his arms disappeared, slowly, into thin air, with nothing but the pleasant chill left where it used to be and Wooyoung cried.

Wooyoung cried until even the chill was gone, as it was eaten up by the air surrounding him and he did not stop crying when he woke up to the same but different moon illuminated his lonely room and the curtains danced with the same but different chill seeping inside and he stuttered out the words he could finally say, to himself and no one else in the dark, without feeling the incredible dread surrounding them.

“He is gone…”

Wooyoung thought he couldn’t go back to sleep, or maybe he would never be able to sleep for a couple of days, but it was proven brutally false when he woke up to the familiar ringing of his phone, from a particular Jeong Yunho asking to meet up. Wooyoung accepted.

The next day Wooyoung clocked out of his shift at the café that he finally went back to work again, even though it took almost an hour length of explanation and slight begging to get his job back, which he thought was worth it considering he gave frankly none when he resigned and he actually really needed a job as he was practically out of any savings he had at this point, and he wasn’t really ready to work at somewhere he was completely unfamiliar, with people he had never seen in his life before. He was very thankful that his boss was the most understanding person ever as he walked out of the café as an employee once again. He was happy with it.

He walked out of the door as the little bell that signaled a new customer chimed for him when he walked into another café they arranged to meet up, and Yunho looked almost miserable as he was perched up upon a fancy-looking chair at the very back of the café. They didn’t really talk after _that_ time, but he often met up with Hongjoong and chatted about life and how it was actually going pretty well, so they were kind of civil, at least. Wooyoung took a seat against Yunho, sending a tiny smile at the way his sleepy eyes looked up at him.

“I know you said you have no idea about it but-” Yunho started after the meaningless small talk and the hustle of ordering that Wooyoung handled since the boy looked so rundown. “And I know this is weird because- But… I think he left…”

Wooyoung’s heart dropped at the familiar but painful word as he tightened his grip around his coffee.

“I know this doesn’t make much sense, but I had a dream last night… You know- He was supposed to get me from the airport but he never did… in the dream, he was actually there, like, it felt so real too but at the same time it felt like him not picking me up but… actually leaving…” Yunho trailed off, his eyes too busy reminiscing. “And since then I never felt the chill or I don’t know, maybe I’m going crazy and the chill has no meaning and all this time I just imagined it because I only felt that when I missed him, knowingly or unconsciously, or when I remembered him, or when telling Hongjoong hyung some story…” He stopped again and took a breath to probably calm himself for a second. “It was kinda reassuring, you know, to feel him like that, like he is my guardian angel-” He stopped again, eyes slightly enlarged with a giggle taken aback at what he himself was talking about. “Wow, that is the stupidest shit I’ve ever said but, you know, right?”

And Wooyoung, apart from the fact that he _knew_ what it is, tried to look confused or unaffected or something else that helped him not look suspicious as he watched the man once again look down in defeat as he played with his own cup.

“Then I woke up suddenly, couldn’t sleep back, and… It feels so weird, it’s- it’s been almost over a year…”

Wooyoung saw the way Yunho was about to break down in front of him and empathy prevented him from confirming the _chill,_ he knew that kind of shit would only make you go mad, like it did to him.

“Yeah, I know.” He said, like it’s enough. “I see him, too, you know, in my dreams… Some feel real, some don’t, and it messes with me… but I guess I’m getting better.”

“To be honest, you look a lot better than, you know, last time.” Yunho said after he progressed for a couple of seconds, maybe after a thorough examination of Wooyoung’s appearance.

Wooyoung suppressed the immense urge to roll his eyes at his tone that probably wasn’t ill-intentioned but was still very much Cocky Yunho. “I was really at my low back then. I never gave you a proper thank you for that night, either, as much as I can remember. So, thank you.”

“Well, if we’re going there…” Yunho pouted slightly as he diverted his gaze on the floor. “I never gave you a proper apology, either. I know it wouldn’t change anything now but, I am really sorry for saying- the _things_ I said. I was mad and sad and looked for someone to blame and… yeah, I know these aren’t excuses at all either-”

“Yunho-yah, its okay.” Wooyoung interrupted Yunho’s blabbering when he realized the man was actually sincerely trying to apologize. “I mean, it wasn’t okay back then, not gonna lie, but seriously I’m getting better. Finally moved out from that apartment and all, actually it’s been like 3 months. I’ve been living with new roommates.”

Yunho blinked. “What about the free rent?”

Wooyoung slightly chuckled. “Well, to be fair it cost more than anything to live at that place, like- like it was haunted and it got so bad at some point...” _Literally_ , Wooyoung thought and bitterly giggled at it in his mind.

“I guess it makes sense.” Yunho nodded his head in agreement “You guys were practically a married couple, spending most of your time there and all…”

“As if Hongjoong hyung isn’t staying at your apartment 24/7...” Wooyoung finally rolled his eyes with a sip from his straw and Yunho’s bloodshot eyes widened slightly for a second before his eyebrows furrowed into a stubborn scowl.

“That’s different! I haven’t asked him to move in officially, yet. Besides, he likes to have his own space, you know, his dorm.”

“When is the last time he stayed there?”

Yunho looked mortified when a single date did not cross his mind.

“It’s okay, Yunho-yah. Unless you’re scared off right now.” Wooyoung smiled as he put his cup back on the table. The bell on the door chimed to alert a new customer but it was not Wooyoung’s responsibility this time. “In that case, this conversation never happened, I don’t wanna be on hyung’s bad side.”

“Don’t remind me.” Yunho scoffed, annoyed as he finally took a sip from his milk tea. “He likes you a little bit too much. No offense, but you’re not that likable.”

“Says you…” Wooyoung rolled his eyes as he let himself bicker with the man that seemingly looked a lot better as time passed and they threw childish comebacks at each other and topped it with sticking their tongues simultaneously.

“So, uh, if you don’t mind me asking, are you seeing anyone, you know, like particular coffee shop goers?” Yunho asked after they stopped acting 5 and Wooyoung took an exasperated sigh with an overdramatic eye roll. “Oh god, did Hongjoong hyung tell you that?”

“Just so you know, as much as he likes you, he likes _me_ the most, so…” Yunho said too smug for someone that was talking about his literal boyfriend, official and all.

“Well, he didn’t tell you the whole thing then, because I’m not seeing anyone, not a particular coffee shop goer either.” He said with a bittersweet smile as he played with his cup on the small table. “We decided to stay as friends.”

Wooyoung could see Yunho’s shoulders visibly relax and huffed silently as he let it pass for this once. “So much happened, you know. He helped me a lot and I didn’t want to ask more from him because… To be honest, a part of me will always love San. I don’t wanna do that to him. He is too nice for that.”

Yunho only blinked as Wooyoung nodded once to self-affirm and smiled at him, then it turned into a scowl because _was Yunho mocking him_ and Yunho spat back with a _why would I mock you when your stupidity exists_ and then they bickered again until one of them huffed and rolled his eyes, ignoring curious and annoyed eyes looking their way to understand who was being childish every five minutes.

Only about a sip or two worth of beverage was what was left in their cups when Wooyoung told Yunho he still had not visited San’s grave and Yunho made him promise they would go all together next weekend, no excuses, and Wooyoung agreed, even though the thought of seeing the grave and how it would slap the fact that yes, San was finally gone from the face of the earth, hopefully out of Wooyoung’s mind soon too, unnerved him and maybe excited him because he needed it.

Life was going on and he needed to catch up with it, along with other people that were ready to be with him throughout it and without the one person that had the most impact on it, worse than any good probably.

They sipped the last of their cups and left them behind as the bell chimed once more.

**Author's Note:**

> it was probably too long of a ride but thank you for reading and leave a kudos!!  
> writing [twt](https://twitter.com/sanjoongy)


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